Roger Taylor Says Sacha Baron Cohen Would Have Been ‘Utter S**t’ As Freddie Mercury

Queen’s Roger Taylor has said he reckons Sacha Baron Cohen would have made a ‘s**t’ Freddie Mercury. 

The Borat star was originally set to star as the iconic frontman in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, but pulled out in claiming that Taylor and Brian May ‘wanted to protect the band’s legacy’ and would cut out some ‘amazing stories about Freddie Mercury’. 

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As we now know, Rami Malek ended up taking on the role and bagging himself an Oscar for it. 

Now Taylor has revealed that while he thinks Baron Cohen is a ‘brilliant’ comedian, he doesn’t think he’d have been a very good Mercury. 

Speaking to Classic Rock magazine, Taylor said: “I think he would have been utter s**t. 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.”

He added: “We kind of got it right in the end. 

“We wanted to take people on a journey, make them feel up and then down, then joyous at the end.”

Back in 2013, at the time it was announced Baron Cohen wasn’t going to take part, Taylor said he felt the actor wasn’t ‘right’ for the role. 

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He told Mojo: "We felt Sacha probably wasn't right in the end. We didn't want it to be a joke. We want people to be moved."

Meanwhile, Baron Cohen explained to Howard Stern that he and the band were unable to agree on the type of movie they wanted to make, so he decided to pull out of the project. 

He told said: “There are amazing stories about Freddie Mercury.

“The guy was wild. There are stories of little people with plates of cocaine on their heads walking around a party.”

But he later found out these stories wouldn’t be in the movie, as May and Taylor were keen to ‘protect’ Queen’s legacy. 

“They wanted to protect their legacy as a band," he added.

He went on to say that he thought May was an ‘amazing musician’ but ‘not a great movie producer’.

Topics: TV and Film, Music, Sacha Baron Cohen

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]