Rami Malek shared a story about Freddie Mercury’s legendary Live Aid performance while on the red carpet for the 2019 Baftas.
The actor, who won Best Actor for his role as the late Queen frontman in Bohemian Rhapsody, recounted an anecdote that Bob Geldof shared with him the previous evening, while speaking to presenters Edith Bowman and Dermot O’Leary on the Baftas red carpet.
“I don’t know if Bob Geldof will kill me for this but I saw him and met him last night and what he said to me is he called Freddie and he told them, ‘Freddie, I think that there’s an event that was made especially for Queen and especially for you,’” the actor said.
“And he goes, ‘This audience is made for Freddie,’ and Freddie said, ‘What do you mean, darling?’ and he said, ‘Well, it’s the world’ and Freddie goes, ‘I see what you mean.’”
During his speech, Malek thanked Dexter Fletcher, who stepped in when director Bryan Singer was fired from the project.
“It’s quite difficult entering your world in this role as an outsider,” he also said during his speech. “You Brits, you do it so well. It’s not lost on me how sacred your musical heritage is. Thank you so much to Queen and to the greatest outsider of them all for being so unwavering and unflinching and uncompromising in every which way – thank you, Freddie Mercury.”
