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Bohemian Rhapsody is more than a Freddie Mercury biopic it’s an exploration and celebration of one of the most popular rock bands of a generation, Queen. The movie is in theaters now and one this episode of Extra Butter with Xilla Valentine, we break down the film with Rami Malek as Mercury, Gwilym Lee as Brian May, Ben Hardy as Roger Tayler and Joseph Mazzello as John Deacon. Also joining us on this episode is Lucy Boynton who plays Mary Austin, the muse and lifelong friend of Freddie Mercury.

Rhapsody delivers grade a acting from everyone involved with Rami Malek being the bright spot. His performance as the legendary rock icon was spot on, from the movements to the lip syncing and the performances. I asked the guys about recreating Queen’s iconic Live Aid performance, Rami revealed that doing one song and stopping was a lot harder than the guys doing the entire Queen set. He told us, “Sometimes it would be more exhausting just to do one of the songs then take a break and do the entire concert because you’re running on so much adrenaline that is carrying you from song to song.”

The film nailed the energy of the show. I watched Queen’s performance at the benefit concert and it was almost identical. It’s scary how they were able to pull it off. Rami explained he felt the similarities too, “I remember working on the entire piece when we shot it and seeing how it was similar to their performance you could feel when the adrenaline was kicking in for them as well.”

One of the other highlights of the film was watching Rami and Lucy Boynton work together on screen to craft Freddie and Mary’s relationship turned friendship. To me, I felt as if, at least for the movie, Freddie felt like he owned Mary because she was his girl. Lucy explained a pivotal scene when Mary starts living for herself.

Lucy really perked up when she heard my opinion of the film saying, “It’s interesting that you say, you see that in the film, I guess that is that thing of the kind of expectation you have of people. Of what they give you and do for you, so I think Freddie really relied on Mary as a staple and center point of his life. You think that such a beautiful and romantic thing until you reverse that and think about how that must of have felt on the receiving end to be seen as someone’s center point as they go off and around.”

Overall Bohemian Rhapsody is a good film that celebrates Queen and delivers an award-winning performance from Rami Malek that’s worth going to the movies to see, but if you want a deep dive into the life of Freddie Mercury, as I felt like the movie could have went deeper into the life of Freddie Mercury.

Bohemian Rhapsody is in theaters now.

Rami Malek Talks Bohemian Rhapsody & Why Freddie Mercury Is A Revolutionary | Extra ButterĀ  was originally published on globalgrind.com