Laurence Olivier said on hearing In My Defence for the first time. "Now there's an actor." One of my favourite Queen quotes.
Olivier, in most people's eyes, the greatest British actor of all time heard the unique Mercury voice in full flow and could imagine our Fred making movies and treading the boards. The famous actors' expression of "break a leg" applied to Freddie when he got injured at Hanover in 1984.
Dismissively Freddie ruled out acting as a career move. That's a pity because his contemporary David Bowie made a lot of wooden appearances on the silver screen and just as our Fred outshone the strange eyed one on Under Pressure he would have out-acted him as well.
The persona of Freddie was so encompassing that he could have played many varied roles. For instance a remake of Viva Zapata would be right up his alley; he already had the moustache. He would have to be careful though, with the moustache, as he wouldn't want to be typecast. Oh alright then, he'd do another 'tache flick. He would be a hoot as Zorro.
Costume dramas would be appealling to him but in true Diva style he'd be bossing the wardrobe and make-up departments about. In fact, he'd be telling the Director how it should be done. And Olivier would regret his remark when our Fred thrills the Shakespearian audience with his velvet tongue rolling over lines like these. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."
Comic timing is a gift and all the great actors struggled with comedy. Brando couldn't do it, De Niro is only getting the hang of it now and Day-Lewis is bad at it. Freddie for all his great sense of humour might not pick up the nuances involved in a good comedic film. Therefore he should remain a straight man.
Glad I am not the only one who wanted to see Fred do acting. I always said that he would have made a fantastic Frank'n' Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. See What A Fool I've Been shows he had the right singing voice for that moivie too.
I am a straight guy, but Freddie is one of those men, like Johnny Depp who had such a compelling look to him too, he could have taken on many roles, and I think he could have been almost as big an actor as he was a rock star (had he done one OR the other - audiences don't generally 'allow' both).
actually he injured his knee in Munich.Anyway I think he would have been a great actor, just look at the stage persona he put out. According to him, he was very shy normally but on stage he appears very extrovert and flamboyant, swearing at the audience and media on stage!!
We all agree that Freddie is unequalled as a stage performer; it would have been interesting if he decided to do some acting. His mini Oscar winning roles in the Queen videos, think of It's a Hard Life, Break free and others, lead me to believe he would have been a formidable artiste in larger roles. If he was still living I'm sure he would have added acting to his CV and taken Hollywood by storm.
And I am glad nobody said Freddie would have been good as Dracula?
The Royalist wrote:
We all agree that Freddie is unequalled as a stage performer; it would have been interesting if he decided to do some acting. His mini Oscar winning roles in the Queen videos, think of It's a Hard Life, Break free and others, lead me to believe he would have been a formidable artiste in larger roles. If he was still living I'm sure he would have added acting to his CV and taken Hollywood by storm.
And I am glad nobody said Freddie would have been good as Dracula?
Some would say that his solo video for I Was Born To Love You was his greatest 'acting' performance LOL.
No really though, I do agree he was a great performer and could have made for a good to great actor too.