Daniel Radcliffe has denied that he will star as Freddie Mercury in biopic of the Queen singer.
The Harry Potter actor was set to replace Sacha Baron Cohen in the lead role. Rumors started to circulate in July that Radcliffe would step into the fold after Baron Cohen left the project due to creative differences.
Radcliffe told Empire magazine, “”There’s no truth to it at all. It’s one of those very, very funny things: it came out of a story in the Daily Star and then you see newspapers like The Guardian using The Star as their source, and it grows and grows until it’s ‘Daniel Radcliffe playing Freddie Mercury!’, which I was never going to do.”
The 24-year-old thespian admitted that he wasn’t suited to play the character, continuing, “Everyone on the internet who I presume is saying I’m totally wrong for the part is correct. I am completely wrong for the part!”
Radcliffe continued, “If I’d seen a rumour about me playing Iggy Pop, I’d think, ‘Hey, I’d have a go at that – that’d be fun!’, but Freddie Mercury? No. I don’t even know who the director is. They seem to be saying it’s Stephen Frears and Tom Hooper on the internet.”
He went on to criticise journalists who simply shoehorn his name next to opening acting parts, as they simply have column inches to fill.
Radcliffe remarked, “This is the kind of thing that happens to me and it happens to Emma [Watson] with multiple ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ things. When somebody has column inches to fill, they just sub in one of our names.”
The actor received some internet abuse for his performance as Allan Ginsberg, the infamous Beat Generation poet, in Kill Your Darlings ; however, most critics agreed that he provided an adequate performance.
[Images via Carl Lender & Matthew Blaney /Wikimedia]