Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Radcliffe Is NOT Going To Play Freddie Mercury In Biopic

Making the rounds for the crime-centric biopic Kill Your Darlings, actor Daniel Radcliffe has nixed the notion that he was offered the lead in the currently Untitled Biopic about Queen front man Freddie Mercury.

Peter Morgan (The Queen) wrote the script which focuses on the band’s formation leading up to Queen’s appearance at Live Aid in 1985  which is considered one of the greatest live concert appearances of all-time. Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson did rewrites.

"The Queen" helmer Stephen Frears has been charged to call action.

Mercury’s death from complications with AIDS in 1991 and his last days won’t be chronicled in the film.

Surviving band members Brian May and Roger Taylor will oversee the music featured in the film.

Graham King Tim Headington Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal will produce the film.

Sacha Baron Cohen was poised to play the singer but vacated the project over  "creative differences" in July.


Chatting with Empire, Radcliffe explained how the report got started, and grew, despite the fact that he has no intention of being involved in the project:

"There is no truth to it at all. It's one of those very, very funny things: it came out of a story in the Daily Star and then you see newspapers like The Guardian using The Star as their source, and it grows and grows [until] it's 'Dan Radcliffe is playing Freddie Mercury!', which I was never going to do. Everyone on the internet who I presume is saying I'm totally wrong for that part is correct. I AM completely wrong for that part!. If I'd seen a rumor about me playing Iggy Pop, I'd think, 'Hey, I'd have a go at that - that'd be fun!', but Freddie Mercury? NoI don't even know who the director is. They seem to be saying it's Stephen Frears and Tom Hooper on the internet. This is the kind of thing that happens to me and it happens to Emma [Watson] with multiple Fifty Shades of Grey things. When somebody has column inches to fill, they just sub in one of our names."

"Darlings" hits screens on Oct 17, 2013.

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