Ben Whishaw is the new Freddie Mercury in that Freddie Mercury movie
Over the summer it was announced that Sacha Baron Cohen would not, as long reported, be playing Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, after the surviving band members became concerned that the Borat star wouldn’t properly convey a dignity befitting the man who dressed up in bondage gear to sing about girls with thick, fat asses. But the show must go on, to quote a song the world’s demanding to see an actor lip-synch, and now it goes on with Ben Whishaw. Deadline reports that Whishaw—who has experience playing rock stars thanks to I’m Not There, and familiarity with crazy, overblown spectacles thanks to Cloud Atlas—will take the lead role in the as-yet-untitled biopic to be directed by Dexter Fletcher.