Rami Malek won the Oscar for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Malek portrays Queen’s charismatic lead singer in the 2018 biographical musical film, which dramatizes the band’s rise, Mercury’s personal life, and the creation of some of its best-known songs.
At the 91st Academy Awards in 2019, Malek won Best Actor. His performance also earned him the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild awards in the same lead-acting category. To prepare, he worked with movement and dialect coaches, studied archival footage of Mercury, and took piano and singing lessons.
The film’s famous Live Aid sequence recreates Queen’s 1985 performance at Wembley Stadium, although the movie rearranges parts of the band’s timeline for dramatic effect. Another common misconception is that Malek supplied every vocal heard in the film: Mercury’s original recordings and vocals by singer Marc Martel were combined with Malek’s performance. Despite mixed reviews of its historical accuracy, the film became a major worldwide box-office success.