Roger Taylor Says Sacha Is ‘Too Funny’ To Play Mercury
Queen drummer Roger Taylor has revealed that the band thought Sacha Baron Cohen was ‘too funny’ to play late singer Freddy Mercury.
The Borat star was cast as Mercury but dropped out suddenly over creative differences and now Taylor has opened up about Baron Cohen’s decision to leave.
He told The Sun: ‘We felt Sacha probably wasn’t right. We didn’t want it to be a joke. We want people to be moved.’
The musician also revealed that the biopic was now unlikely to happen at all.
He said: ‘I thought the music business was slow, but this has been like swimming in treacle. We need to step back now.’
Previous reports suggested that Baron Cohen wanted a grittier take on Mercury’s life but the rest of Queen were keen for the biopic to appeal to a larger audience.
It was rumoured over the weekend that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe had been offered the part after impressing film bosses with his performance as gay poet Allen Ginsburg in Kill Your Darlings.
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