Los Angeles, May 21 (IANS) Hollywood actor Rami Malek wanted to collaborate with Ira Sachs for some time. The actor even went as far as asking his representatives to get him a meeting with the filmmaker.
However, when he got the script for Sachs’ next movie, ‘The Man I Love’, about a New York theater performer navigating life, love and his devotion to his art after being diagnosed with AIDS, Malek admits he hesitated at first, because he was fresh from his Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, reports ‘Variety’.
“When I read the script, I said, ‘I can’t do this. There’s too many similarities. It could be problematic’”,the actor said at a press conference following the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
He continued, “There was a certain sense of fear. I started to really think about what I was afraid of. Was it the similarities? Was it the singing? Was it what was going on in the period? I knew I had to address the fear. If there’s anything Freddie taught me, it was [to] address the fear”.
As per ‘Variety’, the actor contemplated what to do but, he kept in mind that Sachs “makes unique cinema unlike any other”.
He further mentioned, “I knew I was in extraordinary hands, and that if he was choosing me, I could rely on him. Not only to depend on him throughout the film, but to elevate it, to push myself, to force myself to race into that fire”.
“When I raced into it, I started to discover that these men were similar, but they were also worlds apart”, he added.
Playing Jimmy in ‘The Man I Love’ would require him to sing on camera again. But those intimate performances weren’t like playing the Queen frontman playing to crowds of thousands in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
–IANS
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