BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY FILM. Rami Malek plays Freddie Mercury in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. But did the Oscar-winning actor really sing for the purposes of the film?
[Mis à jour le 1er décembre 2021 à 20h45] Rami Malek had the heavy responsibility of playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic of the group Queen released in 2018. And the bet paid off since he won the Oscar for best actor the following year. If the actor gave himself body and soul for this film, adapting his gestures and his speaking to that of the rock legend, is it the actor who sings?
When we watch the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, biopic on Freddie Mercury and his group Queen, it is difficult to know if we are really hearing the voice of its main actor Rami Malek or that of Freddie Mercury. This is quite normal since the production used a complex process to achieve this very specific result. By Rami Malek’s own admission to Metro in the United States, it is “an amalgamation of several voices” which have been mixed to give this unique vocal signature. According to information from The New York Times, the vocals of Rami Malek and that of Canadian singer Marc Matel were mixed in order to replicate the vocal amplitude of Freddie Mercury.
It is a process that Rami Malek fully assumes as he confirmed to the newspaper 20 Minutes. He explains in fact that, on the set, “I sang myself, but I was dubbed for the sung scenes. However, it was essential that we could use my physical expressions in the film, although it was important to me. it was impossible to reproduce the way of singing of Freddie Mercury. ” So much so that, in the finalized film, you neither hear Rami Malek nor really Freddie Mercury. In short, the illusion of cinema at its maximum.
How did Rami Malek prepare to play Freddie Mercury?
In an interview with Le Dauphiné Libéré, Rami Malek explained how his preparation for Bohemian Rhapsody went. In order to blend in with the character of Freddie Mercury, the actor had to put on dentures to replicate the singer’s particular teeth, but that’s not all since he also took singing and piano lessons. In addition, he had the opportunity to undergo vocal training “because he has a unique voice”. However, he did not seek the advice of a choreographer to help him replicate the gestures of Freddie Mercury because “everything about him was spontaneous and that’s what made him so special.”
And Rami Malek didn’t necessarily have a lot of filming time before going into the deep end since, as he told Jimmy Fallon on NBC on NBC, the scenes shot for the Live Aid concert “considered to be the one of the greatest rock concerts of all time … For some reason the producers decided we would shoot them on the first day of shooting! ” A decision that Rami Malek experienced as a real baptism of fire as an actor.
His meeting with the members of the Queen group
On the set of Stephen Colbert on CBS, Rami Malek also told the anecdote of his first meeting with the members of the group Queen. It was in the legendary Abbey Road studios. “I saw this autographed picture of the band Queen and the face of Freddie Mercury saying ‘Don’t do that’ to me. […] I ended up watching them looking at me [jouer Freddie Mercury] for the first time. No pressure !”
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Synopsis – The film traces the incredible career and excesses of iconic singer Freddie Mercury and the exceptional fate of his band Queen. The life of the British singer who broke conventions, is told from his dazzling success to his triumphant Live Aid concert.