Rami Malek almost passed on The Man I Love starring role

Fresh off his time portraying the late and great Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek was handed a script for The Man I Love, a story about a theater performer navigating love and life after being diagnosed with AIDS. Thing is, he almost passed on the role because of how similar that was to the life of Mercury.

During a Cannes panel, as reported by Variety, Malek said to himself “I can’t do this. There’s too many similarities. It could be problematic.” He then decided, after having a long think about what it was he was afraid of and that he had to “address the fear.”

“There was a certain sense of fear. And 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.”

Playing the role of Jimmy, he’d have to perform again, but unlike the epic ballads of Mercury, as the frontman of Queen, the songs done in The Man I Love were much more intimate. Meanwhile, he also understood that filmmaker Ira Sachs was in charge here and knew he’d be in “extraordinary hands.”

Sachs also has a take on the comparisons between Mercury and Jimmy, citing that while the Queen frontman was seeking external ambition, the leading role in The Man I Love is more internal.