Sacha Baron Cohen to play Freddie Mercury in film

Sacha Baron Cohen, who played an ultra-camp Austrian fashion reporter in Bruno, has landed the role of Freddie Mercury in a new film about the flamboyant late singer's band Queen. Peter Morgan, who wrote the script for Frost/Nixon, is behind the film's screenplay.
 
Queen guitarist Brian May has told the BBC that Baron Cohen was confirmed for the project: "He's been on this since we started talking about it seriously with Peter Morgan a couple of years ago."
 
In an interview with the current affairs show HARDTalk May admitted that the casting of Baron Cohen would "probably be a shock to a lot of people, but he's been talking with us for a long time".
 
May said that the film, which begins shooting next year, will focus on the period leading up to 1985's Live Aid. Queen's 21-minute appearance at the iconic fundraising concert at Wembley Stadium was arguably the band's greatest moment as they played hits such as Bohemian Rhapsody and We are the Champions to a global television audience of two billion.
 
Freddie Mercury, whose real name was Farrokh Bulsara, was 45 when he died in 1991. His death came a day after he finally admitted in a press statement that he was suffering from Aids.
 
Both May and Queen's drummer Roger Taylor plan to oversee the music featured in the film, which will include both Queen songs and tracks from Mercury's solo career. May added: "I think we'll try and keep ourselves out of it as much as we can." ·