Sacha Baron Cohen to play Freddie Mercury
- Thread starter Asbo Zaprudder
- Start date
Nothing. It's just a matter of personal preference for me. I found 'Walk the Line' that much more impressive and entertaining because Phoenix and Witherspoon sang themselves and did it so well. I don't expect whoever takes over this role to be able to perfectly imitate Mercury's unique vocal style, but I'd like an accomplished singer in the role.
Firstly let me say that I completely agree about George Michael, he would have brought what they needed to the table. I went to a Q+PR gig, it was highly entertaining, but just strayed a long long way from what Queen were all about. For a start they play far too much blues rock and have 15+ people on stage these days, all sorts of backing singers, extra guitarists etc etc. Up to 1986 they only ever needed one extra musician as a rule, but still put on blistering performances, recreating their albums not faithfully but in a way that made sense live and still had that massive Queen sound.
Although I think you are too kind to Freddie. If you listen to some of the thousands of bootlegs out there, you'll see that while when he was on form he was magnificent, he was also very inconsistent, his voice cracked all the time, he'd be regularly off key and he'd simply miss out high notes if he wasn't feeling up to it.
Personally i'd put Bellamy up there with Freddie technically as a singer, i've seen Muse a few times and never seen him miss a note, and i'd probably rate him higher than Freddie as an instrumentalist (but not as a songwriter or a frontman). Although i'd agree he sounds, looks and moves nothing like him and would be a poor choice to play him unless he also turned out to be an amazing actor.
^ I agree that Rodgers has a more consistent voice than Freddie did, but he's a mere shadow of the performer. I've seen him solo in the mid nineties & with Queen, he's not a patch on the quality of frontman that Freddie was.
I don't really think he sounds like him, although Freddie was a very big admirer of PR in his earlier days.
I don't really think he sounds like him, although Freddie was a very big admirer of PR in his earlier days.
IIRC, Jamie Foxx, despite being an experienced musician himself, lip-synched all of the songs in Ray. His thinking was that, since everyone knows what Ray Charles really sounded like, attempting to fake it would be pointless. A large part of why people went to the film would be because of the fondness they had for how Charles sounded, not for anything that Foxx could do vocally.
I think they'd be wise to lip-synch in the Freddie Mercury movie too. And outside of the singing, I think SBC is a great physical match and I can totally see him capturing that theatrical essence that Mercury had on stage.