Taron Egerton has revealed that he moved in with Sir Elton John as part of his preparation for biopic Rocketman.
The actor is playing the music legend in a film about his life, and moved into his house to get to know him better.
Taron, 29, told Man About Town magazine: "I spent a fair bit of time with him before we started shooting.
"He didn’t come on set, thank God, I’d have found that really hard. But…I went and stayed with him before we started shooting and he let me read his diaries and I hung out with him and got to ask him things….which certainly protects me a bit.
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"He lends a bit of an air of authenticity and it gives this a bit of a seal of approval really, which is great. I still speak to him once or twice a week now. He’s very in my life. It’s nice... and a bit f**king surreal!"
Taron posed for the cover of the mag alongside co-star Jamie Bell, who plays Bernie Taupin.
The pair were shot for the publication by budding photographer Brooklyn Beckham , who also happens to be Elton's Godson.
Taron also spoke about the work he had to put in to sound like Elton.
He said: "I have to say, I think when your primary objective is sounding like someone, then you slightly sacrifice a purity of expression and a real humanity. It can become a little bit sterile…And I absolutely didn’t want to do that because this is about illuminating someone’s life and what’s really going on with them.
"So there’s inevitably a bit of Taron in there because we’re talking about the spirit of someone and about their inner life and their drug addiction, not about the way they move their mouth in an interview."
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He added: "For me, it’s really fun telling this story in a slightly less conventional way because it means you can bend the character slightly. So me running around like a lunatic and dancing as if my life depended on it in this kind of wild, anarchic way, is not necessarily something we’ve seen Elton John do before. But that’s fun. We get that little more license."
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