Director Bryan Singer has been hard at work developing his new film about the legendary rock band Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, but the project up to this point has only had one actor attached. Rami Malek has been set to play Freddie Mercury in the movie for months, however, we've been patiently waiting for the production to cast the rest of the group. Today we finally have that news, as its being reported that Joe Mazzello, Ben Hardy and Gwilym Lee have all boarded the highly-anticipated feature, and will respectively play Queen's famed bassist, drummer, and lead guitarist.
Rami Malek has been attached to Bohemian Rhapsody since November of last year, but The Hollywood Reporter has now gotten the scoop on the other key players in the ensemble. In case you couldn't tell, these aren't A-list names that have been hired, but it is noteworthy that each star does have an interesting passing resemblance to the character that they are playing. Let's take a closer look at them each individually, shall we?
As Queen's lead guitarist, Brian May is the band's second most famous member behind Freddie Mercury, and Gwilym Lee will have the responsibility for bringing the axe man's personality and incredible skills to the big screen (though he'll probably have to put on a big frizzy wig if he wants to get the look completely right. Lee has been working as an actor since the late 1990s, and has primarily spent his career on the small screen over in the UK, but he made his film debut back in 2010 with a bit part in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Tourist.
Movie-lovers will probably always recognize Joe Mazzello as the nerdy, dinosaur-loving Tim Murphy in Jurassic Park, but the young actor has actually carved out a substantial adult acting career for himself - even before joining Bohemian Rhapsody. The image above comes from his supporting part alongside Jesse Eisenberg in David Fincher's The Social Network, but his small screen performances in The Pacific and Justified both made his talents very clear. In the Bryan Singer movie, he'll be playing Roger Taylor, so you can look for him at the back of the set keeping the beat on drums.
Bohemian Rhapsody will be Bryan Singer's first non-X-Men movie since 2014, but he's keeping a piece of those experiences with him by bringing one of his actors along for his next project. After a long run on the British soap EastEnders, Ben Hardy got his big screen debut playing Warren Worthington III/Archangel in Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse, and now its confirmed that the actor and director will reunite for the Queen film. Playing John Deacon a.k.a. "Deacy," Hardy should have a substantial role to play, as he was not just the bassist, but composed many of the band's biggest hits and managed their finances.
Justin Haythe, who previously earned acclaim for the script he wrote for Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, wrote the screenplay for Bohemian Rhapsody, and the project is set up to be produced and released by GK Films, 20th Century Fox, and New Regency. The new movie is currently slated for release on Christmas Day in 2018 - so while THR doesn't mention when production will start rolling on the project, we can expect that to probably happen in the next few weeks.
