Roger Taylor has defended the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody’s timeline change, following criticism.
Queen’s legendary frontman Freddie Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS after the global concert. However in the movie, Freddie Mercury tells his bandmates about his diagnosis during rehearsals.
This timeline change also leads to a dramatic effect of the performance.
“messed with the timeline”
Speaking to Classic Rock, Roger Taylor has defended the dramatic change in the biopic’s timeline.
“It didn’t fictionalize the real story, only in detail”, he said. “It messed with the timeline. But when you’re making a movie, which is approximately a hundred minutes long, you have to mess with the timeline to make it work”.
Taylor also added, “The movie has to work, that’s priority one. Even documentaries don’t stick to the absolute timeline, they are all squeezed and tweaked and altered, to be effective. It’s a f*****g film! It’s not claiming to be a documentary”.
Speaking of the biopic, Taylor said that Bohemian Rhapsody had such a “delightful” and “positive” effect.
“I feel that when we were looking at all the 17 scripts, we kind of got it right in the end. The balance is right”, Taylor said.
“We wanted to take people on a journey, make them feel up and then down, then joyous at the end. … We sold even more tickets at our concerts, we suddenly had loads and loads of young people. Because Brian [May] and I are very senior these days”.
Cohen Would Have Been “Utter s**t” – Taylor
It also emerged that Sacha Baron Cohen was originally cast to play Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody back in 2010.
However, Cohen walked away from the production in 2013, following alleged differences of opinions between him and remaining Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor.
Cohen claimed that Taylor and May disagreed with his plan to protray Mercury “warts n’ all”. They wanted to “protect their legacy as a band”.
Not holding back in his views of Cohen, Roger Taylor claimed in an interview that the Borat star would made an “utter s***” Freddie.
“I think he would have been utter s**t”, Taylor claimed.
He added, “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 Rami did a brilliant job in an almost impossible role”.
The role was eventually taken up by Rami Maleek who subsequently earned an Oscar for his performance in the role, and “did a brilliant job in an almost impossible role”, according to Taylor.
