SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Malek, in the film (read our film review of "Bohemian Rhapsody" here) you also portray a shy, sensitive Freddie Mercury away from the famous, extravagant stage persona. How exactly did you find this access to his character?

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"Bohemian Rhapsody": The show must go on ...

Rami Malek : In order to be able to sing his songs as effectively as he did, I am so investigative in his song lyrics, as usually only in a script. So for me, it was not a normal, 125-page script for this film, I had more to study the 300 pages, if you add all the lyrics. I also write a bit privately, and usually it all comes straight out of things that I long for in the depths of my heart. So I guessed: The key lies in his own texts. In the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" reveals the whole conflict of his identity: The intimate, sung directly from the soul desire to be detached from ideas that someone has of you, or attributions from outside. This has brought me closer to the human Freddie Mercury step by step. Until then, I'd only known him as the legendary frontman of a rock band.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Was it helpful to be able to approach Mercury and the Queen's history relatively unobtrusively?

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Rami Malek

Malek: I knew Queen, I knew some songs and the pictures. But I had no idea, for example, of the glittering glam rock version from the seventies. I was a bit shocked to see that, to be honest. I felt like a sponge soaking up all this, becoming a kind of researcher digging for information: everything was interesting and helpful, every little bit of fun: when I got through with video footage, I started watching Mercury's radio To hear interviews. His voice and moods changed constantly! In a moment he was able to catch the charming gentleman ( Malek imitates a nasal, British accent ): "Darling, would you bring me a cup of tea please?", Then he patted the presenter: "What kind of an arsehole question is that! " He held many different personalities in himself and used that to his advantage. With him, you never knew which Freddie you would get right now. That's what I wanted to try to show in the movie.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What, apart from the artificial front teeth, was the biggest difficulty in turning into Freddie Mercury?

Malek: What I really wanted to accomplish was effortlessly, "in no time," as Freddie would say ( flicking lightly with his finger ), in each scene of the movie exactly like him. So I needed someone who would help me not only to imitate his unique body language, but also to understand what he wanted to articulate with it. He literally exploded on stage. Everything was spontaneous, nothing prepared. If it is rehearsed, it is boring, was his motto. And nothing about this man was boring.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who or what helped you?

Malek: I had met with choreographers and, of course, studied and researched photos, videos and everything else that was tangible. But ultimately it was my movement coach Polly Bennett who made the breakthrough. During one of our sessions, she said to me, Why do not you just walk around the room like skis? At first I did not know what she meant. But then I understood that she wanted to translate a Mercury-specific type of movement. It was really intimidating when recording for the Live Aid concert, which we had to do on the very first day of shooting. I did not know until then whether I would actually be able to recreate Freddie's special stage spontaneity.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And?

Malek: But with the band in the back, going through the songs on stage, I actually felt the adrenaline rush and got a sense of manipulating my body in the same way it once did.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The live productions in the film are great, but everything else seems very tame and good, measured by the dissolute life Mercury, do not you think?

Malek: One certainly could have done this more explicit film, which you mean. At the beginning of the shoot, I thought a lot about how deep we should go into the dark and the abysses. But then I realized: If you stay there too long, you may not celebrate enough what Freddie really was: a bon vivant who enjoyed life to the fullest and celebrated. We did not want the viewer to lose sight of that beauty and his ability to enjoy it. Of course, he said: "My favorite hobby is sex", of course he had countless lover, the film does not scare. He does not go terribly deep, but he gives, I think very elegantly, the right dose so as not to distract you from the essence of his humanity.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would you describe them?

"Bohemian Rhapsody" movie trailer:

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20th Century Fox

Malek: Freddie Mercury's story is so effective because at some point he just stopped worrying about what people think of him. He had found his identity and refused to be put in drawers: I can be who I am, you can be who you are, and we can all sing together "We Are The Champions," that was his revolutionary idea of ​​inclusion , If we had made the movie darker, more exploitative or more slippery, ...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: ... and would have risked an age restriction at the box office ...?

Malek: ... then we would have deprived younger viewers of the opportunity to see it all. And so we would have done a lot of people do no favor that such a voice - Freddie Mercury's voice - urgently need.