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Queen: Their Feud With Sacha Baron Cohen Over 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Brian May, Roger Taylor Hotney 3 Streams • 3 years ago

Queen would feud with actor Sacha Baron Cohen over his involvement in the film 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

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#queen #bohemianrhapsody #sachabaroncohen

I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

Back in 2010 it came to light that the rock band queen was planning on doing a biopic about their career While Rami Malek would go on to play Freddie Mercury, it was originally envisioned that Sacha Baron Cohen would play Queen’s frontman. Years later Cohen revealed why he was no longer part of the film and why things fell apart. Cohen would even reveal that the original script seemed like a terrible idea. One member of Queen wouldn’t mince words about his disdain for the actor. That’s what were going to explore in today’s video.

In September of 2010 guitarist Brian May would let it slip that Queen was working on a biopic that actor Sacha Baron Cohen had been pushing for. May would tell the Hardtalk Show “We have Sacha Baron Cohen, which will probably be a shock to a lot of people, but he's been talking with us for a long time," It was initially reported that shooting would begin in 2011

More than a year later by April of 2011 shooting hadn’t begun yet. Brian May gave an update telling the Daily Record that they were still in discussions with Sacha baron cohen and that the actor told him personally he was born to play freddie. However, May would reveal that the rest of the Queen organization were reluctant to do a film fearing it could hurt the band’s legacy stating : "It is a project which is taking up a lot of time even though it is in the preparatory stages. It is a bit early to say how we will feel about it.
"Obviously, we go into it with a great amount of enthusiasm but also a certain amount of caution because Freddie's legacy is very precious and we have a great responsibility not to mess it up. It is more about Freddie than it is about us and that is deliberately so.
"We have resisted making this film for a long time and it is only now we feel we have the right people that we have given it the OK.
"Sacha does seem perfect. If it hadn't been for Sacha pushing and pushing, we wouldn't be at this point. We didn't choose him. He chose us."He is passionate about playing Freddie. For years, he's been saying he is going to do it."
Then a few years would go by and in July of 2013 it came out that Baron Cohen and Queen had parted ways on the project. It was reported at the time that creative differences led to the split with Baron Cohen wanting the biopic to be nitty gritty while Queen wanted the movie to be more restrained and sanitized. Brian May would claim that the parties parted ways on good terms, but in 2014 both Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor gave an update on the film. May would tell Classic Rock magazine "[I]n the end we felt that his presence in the movie would be very distracting," referring to the comedians over the antics with characters like borat and bruno going on to say "[W]e thought there has to be no distraction in the Freddie movie. You have to really suspend that disbelief – the man who plays Freddie, you have to really believe is Freddie. And we didn’t that could really happen with Sacha." May would say he was a fan of Baron, Cohen, but Roger Taylor was less diplomatic saying We didn’t want it to be a joke. We want people to be moved. 2 years later the actor appeared on the howard stern show in 2016 and gave his version of events and made a surprising revelation of the original script he was involved with and why he walked away.

in 2018 while promoting the film to the associated press Roger Taylor would slam cohen saying “It was never really on [with Cohen]. I don’t think he took it seriously enough — he didn’t take Freddie seriously enough. I think it’s [been] a long road, but we’re at the end of it now.”
Taylor echoed those feelings again this year with Classic Rock Magazine where he told the publication what have would happened if Baron Cohen played freddie saying “I think he would have been utter shit,” “Sacha is pushy, if nothing else. He’s also six inches too tall. But I watched his last five films and came to the conclusion he’s not a very good actor… I thought he was an utterly brilliant subversive comedian, that’s what he’s great at. Anyway, I think
Sources

https://www.indiewire.com/2021..../12/queen-slams-sach

https://cultmtl.com/2021/03/sa....cha-baron-cohen-was-