Borat to play Queens Freddie Mercury

Sounds great to me, whos going to play Brian May.

Bumping this thread.

Just been doing a bit of research on this.

The movie is hoped for a release toward the end of this year.


My thoughts:
Sacha Baron Cohen is one of the finest character driven actors of our time. He's extremely underrated due to the fact that he has only ever done comedy roles.
If you look at his creations though and they way he disappears into the role, he's unrecognisable in everything he does.

Ok, he causes controversy pretty much everywhere he goes with his antics and has only revolved himself around comedic (albeit controversial) roles but I for one can see him playing Mercury absolutely brilliantly. Baron Cohen has the natural flamboyance to do it.

Some things for sure, he has a deep-seeded love of Freddie and he's been practicing his singing hard, and has even been given a stamp of approval by a number of people who have heard him sing.

As for being able to act the character of Freddie: Nobody can do it, except for Baron Cohen.

Found this link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ry-biopic.html

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I'm a big Queen fan, and I like Cohen enough, so you could say I'm a bit excited about this.

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

Funny how a lot of people ask: "Is Baron Cohen the right choice?"


Erm, he was the one who actually asked to play the role when he heard about the film being made, he wasn't actually picked.


I too am extremely excited by this, TD99. With SBC as Freddie, it can't go wrong.

Sacha Baron Cohen is said to star as Freddie Mercury in an upcoming Biopic on the Queen singers Life story.

Can Sacha competently handle such a role?

If one thinks of the great biopics of the past, they have featured ralatively unknown actors, granted, but who are known to be able to dramatically act to a high standard. For such a big role,that is essential , isnt it?

But also such stars of such movies always have some special something that a director has seen in them that makes them suitable and perfect for the role of a famous person.

This includes how they look, obviously, but a director isn't just looking at just any people in the street, and seeing resemblence, he is looking at people he knows have a competent dramatic acting ability. Surely this goes without saying?

As far as i can tell, Sacha Baron Cohen has not once displayed any ability to convincingly act out a serious dramatic part.

A good director knows that his options have to open and his instincts have to be at work when finding someone suitable for a role, this is especially so if the movie happens to be the life story of a real person, a biopic. In a biopic , believability and accuracy and detail are surely more paramount than ever?

All this can only be achieved with a seriously good actor,who has the potential to become great, with such an oppertunity, if the script is competent and does the life story justice, never mind one with a believable resemblance.

And surely a thorough period of casting is called for, to make sure you have the right person. And, is that not, the only sane route?
After all how much money is at stake? Who's reputations?
who's memory?
How much money is at stake on a hollywood movie?

My observations appear quite sensible, to me at least.

With this in mind i have endevoured to try and find a proven actor, who is competent enough , young enough, and can credibly look both like a young and older freddie mercury, in much the same way as Robert Downey Jnr , played charlie chaplin from the age of 18 to 90 something, i believe i have found an actor who can play Freddie Mercury from his late teens to 20's to early 30's ( the period needed if the movie is to cover the formative years through to the end of his live concert career, as has been said by the Producer, Graham King.)
The name of the actor i have found is Jeremy Kapone. Jeremy is a half inch taller than the Real man, Yet will fit with the other cast members, all of whom's heights are almost exactly as the real Queen, and who look like them.

The actors found for other parts are Jake Abel for Roger Taylor, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for the role of John Deacon.
Sadly, i should think one of them could possibly not act though, however he stands as much chance as Sacha Baron Cohen in my opinion, as he to is a comic.Dominic Harris a dead ringer for Brian May, just shy of Sacha's height, but a good 6' 3 at least i should think.

I have found 36 actors in all, for the various roles that should be included, if the story is truly going to be a thorough detailed true depiction of Freddie Mercury's life, as the word biopic suggests.

But most crucially, i have Kapone for the lead.

Again i ask, is there any evidence?
Sacha Baron Cohen can dramatically act to a suitable standard?

you tube
The Freddie Mercury Biopic - Director Sir Richard Attenborough

Above is a very indepth and apt interview on how Sir Richard Attenborough made probably the greatest ever Biopic, and what the actor chosen to play him brought to the role.

Likewise, in agreement with Sir Richard Attenborough's description of Robert Downey becoming Chaplin, I believe Jeremy Kapone can become Freddie Mercury,and I have no doubts about it. He can and will.

So with this interview in mind, with all it's detail of how a great biopic is made, I expect no less of the Freddie Mercury Biopic, for the difficulties they faced with Chaplin are very similar to the ones with Freddie Mercury . But i believe i have found the right man who can make "Mercury" as great as "Chaplin'.
All that is needed now is for those with the power to simply use what i have found.

I do hope i am not alone in my capacity to grasp that the portrayal of such a unique man as Freddie Mercury, who was a man of such contrasts and extremes, a very private man, with a very complicated personal life and journey, a man who like chaplin was a immigrant, who became a genious musical composer, created such a powerful and recognizable image, was of unequalled talent as both a singer and stage performer.
I really do hope i am not alone in grasping that such a man needs a very special and talented actor, to truly become Mercury, it requires an actor who is able to truly give a valid telling of his life story in a believable, moving , powerful and credible way, an actor who can truly reveal the fullness of the personality, both public and private.

Freddie Mercury was himself an actor, and he really needs a true actor to play his part, was Freddie so succesful at hiding himself, that now people do not realise he was probably the greatest actor ever?
This maybe a revelation to many, but isn't it obvious?

Everyone wants to know about the real Private man, but Freddie's whole thing was his act, nobody except very few saw that real man.
Now i hope we all have an oppertunity to have an honest detailed and true look at the man. I believe Jeremy Kapone is just about the only one who could realisticly enable that.

This very difficulty of the uniqueness of Freddie Mercury is the very reason people have unthinkingly jumped on the Sacha Baron Cohen mistake, but what a grave mistake indeed!
It is as if we have been tricked! and the trick is this , Cohen has no chance of portraying the real Freddie, only an embarrasing comedy turn and parody of the stage Freddie, and that is the trick.
But even that will look rediculous.
what an amazing oppertunity missed, how tragic it would be for cinema to miss out on capturing the epic granduer of such a powerful performer, who's stage performance and voice lifted the whole world.

Dont be fooled, we want to see the real man, both on stage and off.

Here is a video showing Jeremy Kapone in contrast to Sacha Baron Cohen
as Mercury. it also features Sacha's singing voice.
The Freddie Mercury Biopic - Sacha Baron Cohen Sings Queen

I maintain, as talented as he is at what he does , Sacha Baron Cohen is a ham, he can only do panto type roles.

When confronted with this reality many argue:

Well Truth is we've never seen him in a non-comedy roll. So we just don't know how well he'll handle it.

But really such risks are not taken with a valuable image like Mr Mercury's,
such chance is not part of such production money.
The only benefit to a casting of Mr Cohen is because of an active knoweldge of his "talents" known thus far.

In other words he has said he wants to do it, and there is agreement amongst those who know exactly what he has already done.
That is checking the resume, that is how it works.

They agree knowing only what he has done.
and let me assure you, that is all he has done- what you know they know, because there is nothing else in his whole career.

So in sadness I ask, was Freddie's stage perfomance, acclaimed as it was , merely the result of someone akin and equal to that of Cohen's talents, a panto actor that he is?

was Freddie's private mind that of a the depth of a panto character?
why does everyone think he can be treated with such casual dismissal? and contempt, that his life is so callously dismissed and its depth worthy of such an actor, who has no skill and no depth, he would be fitting to someone so shallow?

Is it really because ther dont see him as a real person but only as a stooge?
A suitable vehicle for a clown actors chance to clown to the upmost outrage?

Since when do biopics so activelly and so obviously risk to denegrate, and dismiss, the personhood of the people they are meant to be in honour of?
by having a dramatic disaster ape them. ?

Well if Freddie's great stage craft and skill as a musical mind , and his image is so easily dismissed as to be so easily summed up that it is equated portrayable by a pantomine actor such as Sacha, then why bother making a biopic about his life in the first place?
As such a joke of a human being, surely is far too one dimensional to be of interest to anyone.
Mercury requires a masterful performance,
not a disaster performer of bufoonery.

I didn't read your whole post when you started focusing on height being a crucial element to the role. Are you actually Jeremy Kapone by any chance?

What I will say is, Baron Cohen is a great character actor who's believably embodied a range of characters albeit for comedy purposes. However, a lot of these characters aren't inherently funny in themselves but more the reactions they generate from others in the scenes. I don't have any hesitation in seeing him play a straight role and think it's quite an exciting choice as he definitely as the strength of character and personality to play a larger than life icon.

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I said before in another post about Cohen.

To play Mercury, the actor needs flamboyance and the ability to completely turn into the character of Mercury.

Sacha Baron Cohen has this in abundance, everything he's ever done... he's been completely unrecognisable. I've no doubt he'll nail the role... even Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor have said he's the best choice.

The height point was to give a brief on Jeremy and the other actors heights, although it is not essential it saves money.Plus you have all the other various cast members -Friends -managers- enterage, etcetc, these to you have to consider in relation to Freddie's Height.
The expense will be enormous, because you are talking about every single scene in the movie where Freddie is on camera.
So i would not easily dismiss this vital thing.

Cohen invents characters that have no bearing on anything that functions in the same manner as real humanity.
Therefore his chracters are not on the same par as other comical chracters, and so he is at a disadvantage already.

Besides the fact he has never shown any flair at serious roles, he is too old, 41 this october, (Freddie i am sure would be very pleased to have a 41 year old portraying him in his mid twenties),
and as mentioned, Sacha Baron Cohen is too tall 6' 4" infact.
Brian May was 6'3, this only adds to the problems that will be very expensive to reciify.
It would not be as bad if the guitarist Freddie Mercury always worked with on stage, had not been so tall and famously so., but he was.

And he does not bear the slightest true resemblance to Freddie Mercury, contrary to the hype and ill considered talk of some.whereas Kapone is strikingly able to transform himself into him.

And Sacha Baron Cohen certainly cannot sing, infact he was banned from attempting to sing true melody in the Tim Burton movie, by Tim Burton who re evaluated after discovering he couldnt sing, and let him kind of rap his singing, similar to the style of talk camp that Jim Broadbent used in Moulin Rouge.
And most recently he is holding up the Les Miserable shooting, even causing some people who have a tight schedule to lose their roles, because of this hold up caused by his problems in singing.

This summary of Freddie as a personaility as camp, is so limiting Freddie as a whole it really puts a danger of him being taken unseriously.

For sure i agree, Freddie was camp, but it will take a true real actor to portray that naturally, and not turn it into a bad parody, instead of a real cheeky facet of his personaility.
Again it is true Freddie naturally had a camp air about him, but he could also turn on a real macho persona,

so both these elements Freddie obviously used to the full, and were part of his public persona which was arrived at through the public view through media, wether tv video etcetc.

This campness is not the whole picture of the private man and his mind, and Sacha Baron Cohen's silly over the top portrayal of campness, is totally not the same, neither clever enough, to substitute for Freddie's theatricality wit and humour.
I do not want to see another Bruno, albiet a 1970's version.
Surely that is not the objective of acting, but it is all the Sacha can bring, so i say no way , thankyou very much.

Again a real actor , with the ability to study every nuance, every flash of the interlect behind the eyes, that resulted in the way Freddie looked as camp per se-, needs a real scrutiny to be portrayed with a reality and believability that is honest and affective.

This is far too overblown for what it is, i'm having difficulty justifying a further response.

I knew you would have difficulty, as I have been trying to argue these points with others, but the truth is what i am saying cannot really be argued against, be it you or them.

It is a shame Sacha has no skills other than his interview type comedy skills, and i would only be too pleased if he was suitable for the role, and a good twenty years younger, but sadly, he isn't.

No, I don't have difficulty. I just don't have the time or the patience to respond further to someone who appears mentally unstable or naive enough to cite a couple inches in height as a massive neglect from the casting team. You have too much vindication in your redundant argument to possibly hope to clear any common ground. I think you're unfairly bias against Cohen, who has proved himself to be more than an 'interview comedian' and putting too much stock into only one possible replacement. Just shhh and wait for at least a trailer

Your abusiveness really does diminish any credence others give to you.

You can read , as can anyone, I have dilligently described the full volume of horrors that glaringly highlight Sacha Baron Cohen's complete unsuitability for the role, a monumental list of them infact, that go far beyond that question of his height.

Ok, I don't care enough then? Nothing anyone can say will change your opinion, as evidenced by the lengths you've gone to try and justify it. Cohen has the role.

Deal with it.

You are obviously satisfied with Cohen in the role, I certainly am not .

he's unrecognisable in everything he does.
Talk about talking loony tunes delusional fantasy land

The Bit here we see the reason for this flight into total unreality

Nobody can do it, except for Baron Cohen

This is the mad cry of the slobbering Borat fandom.

worshipping at the alter of this utterly bad actor , who when asked to act anything but his own wild crazy inventions, cannot drink a cup of tea convincingly, unless snuggly hidden inside the skin of one his own magnificent self made creations of the planet absurd- The Dictatorial like crazy brain of Sacha Baron Cohen.
What an insult to Mercury The Great it would be.

I find this so terribly ironic, given today's convo in the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes thread. You don't want to think about or see Andy Serkis because he spoils your ability to believe there's actually a talking monkey (or giant, or gangly creature) onscreen. I'd call that "loony (sic) tunes delusional fantasy land."

This guy has to be Sacha Baron Cohen pranking us.

That is because your being dumb.

Oh, well I'm glad we cleared that up.



Great insight. Way to finish strong. *claps*