Legendary Queen guitarist Brian May revealed to Absolute Radio’s Leona Graham that when his kids first saw the smash hit film ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ they actually thought his voice had been dubbed into the film.
“Gwilym who played me even fooled my kids when they saw it. They said you must have done the voice dad, I went no, no he did that” commented Brian, who joined Leona to chat about Queen’s 50th anniversary year.
Alongside chatting about the Greatest Hits album Brian also talked candidly about Freddie and the complexities he had as a character, the problems they faced around the making of the film and how it has introduced a new generation of people to Queen.
Brian on the cast and getting the film made “The boys who played us were incredible, Rum (Rami Malek) is outstanding, and Gwilym who played me even fooled my kids when they saw it. They said you must have done the voice dad, I went no, no he did that …. and Graham King our producer was outstandingly brave in steering the whole thing through as it was very difficult, we had all kinds of problems as you probably know, including a director who went off the rails if you like…. It came close to not happening. It was all called off at one point and then we managed to put it back on the rails, and then everybody who had been effectively laid off came back and said we want to make this film, we love it, and we believe in it. So, it was an amazing feeling of teamwork on that film.”
Brian on Freddie “On one level yes he was always a Rockstar … He behaved as if he was Robert Plant at the time and nobody minded because he just had that kind of aura about him but underneath it no, massive insecurities, massive shyness, it was always with him right until the end. He had a very private side to him Freddie and he faced up to his insecurities by building himself in the way he wanted to be. He’s a very self-made creature is Freddie. And if you peeled of all the layers of the onion, you'd find a lot of complexity, a lot of it which he denied, which is smart I think really. People would say is your music important Freddie and he would say no no its just tomorrow fish n chips paper, no I don’t think my songs are worth anything but underneath that yes of course he felt he had stuff to say ... Freddie was always expressing himself in rather daring ways, inside is this rather insecure person and on the outside was a warrior that he was building himself into.”
Brian on how they wanted the film to show Freddie “There’s a lot of truth in the film, we didn’t make the film, we were like the uncles of the film if you like, but we spent years looking at scripts and trying to figure out how we would do Freddie justice, without overblowing him and without sort of fantasying.”
Hear Brian with Leona on Saturday 3rd July from Midday on Absolute Classic Rock and the interview in full on Tuesday 6th July at 10pm
Brian will also be on the Absolute Classic Rock Party – networked on Absolute Radio and Absolute Classic Rock – Saturday 3rd July from 7pm.
