"It's never going to be perfect"

Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek has defended the film’s portrayal of the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury for not showing the “entire Freddie Mercury story”.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Malek said that they wanted to show everything they could in the biopic but were constrained by the “two hours” they had to tell the story.

Malek said: “In those two hours I know that those men want to celebrate Freddie’s life, and there was definitely a cognisant effort not to make this a hedonistic, salacious film.

“I think we all would have loved to show more of Freddie’s relationship with Jim [Hutton] toward the end of his life. That relationship was absolutely gorgeous, and if I had it my way, boy, would I love to tack on another hour to this film and fill in a few gaps.”

He added: “It’s never going to be perfect in fulfilling the story of a man who we could make countless documentaries about and countless miniseries about.”

Malek said that the film’s aim was to highlight “what stereotypes [Mercury] destroyed.” He continued: “He, and the band, they brought down every convention of what music should be and how human beings should act in public. He’s a revolutionary in that he just refused to be segregated or marginalised in any way.

“I know there’s always going to be polarising aspects to this film. There’s no way around it. You can do the other version of this film, but we needed to focus on a finite period of time and we always wanted to bookend the film with Live Aid.”

Meanwhile, Brian May praised Rami Malek’s portrayal of the Mercury earlier this week (November 23) after the film stormed the global box office.

The biopic debuted to mixed reviews in October, although critics were near-unanimous in praising Malek’s portrayal of the legendary frontman.

May said: “He’s incredible… without doubt he’ll be on the nominations list for an Oscar and well deserved as well,” May told the Press Association.