This week, a wonderful story was told by Bohemian Rhapsody lead Rami Malek, who revealed Bob Geldof had a huge role in convincing Mercury that Queen was a good fit for Live Aid. Per Rami Malek:
I don’t know if Bob Geldof will kill me for this but I saw him and met him last night and what he said to me is he called Freddie and he told them, ‘Freddie, I think that there’s an event that was made especially for Queen and especially for you.’And he goes, ‘This audience is made for Freddie,’ and Freddie said, ‘What do you mean, darling?’ and he said, ‘Well, it’s the world’ and Freddie goes, ‘I see what you mean.
Bob Geldof is a character played by Dermot Murphy in Bohemian Rhapsody during the Live Aid scenes, and Rami Malek reveals that the real-life Geldof told him about the way he convinced Freddie Mercury Live Aid was a good fit for Queen.
If you saw Bohemian Rhapsody, you should know that Queen was a late addition to the bill for the popular concert – a concert which aired worldwide. Although some details regarding the timeline of Freddie Mercury’s AIDS progression and more were changed for the movie, a lot of the characters we saw involved in Live Aid along with the performance itself were pretty accurate to the event.
In general, the movie strove to get the looks and mannerisms of its characters right and there's been a lot of praise in particular for Rami Malek's performance in the film.
In fact, thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody, there’s been a renewed interest in Freddie Mercury in recent months. Old stories have surfaced and been retold for new audiences and previously unheard of stories have also unfolded in interviews. This Bob Geldof version of events came from Rami Malek when he was speaking on the red carpet at the 2019 Baftas (via Independent).
The other members of Queen were originally reluctant to do a biopic based around the band and its frontman, Freddie Mercury, however the likes of Roger Taylor and Brian May seem happy with the final product. As do the actors involved with the flick.
As does the rest of the world. Bohemian Rhapsody has gone on to be a fairytale movie for Twentieth Century Fox, which is in the process of selling to Disney. The movie was made for around $52 million and has grossed more than $844 million worldwide. It's been a massive hit, in particular for an original property and even more so because it's a musical biopic.
Bohemian Rhapsody has cleaned up at awards ceremonies so far this season. It is also up for some Oscars later this month and we’ll have to wait and see how it fares when the big awards ceremony airs on Sunday, February 24th, only on ABC. Take a full look at the nominees while you wait.
