Mike Myers May Appear in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Film
The cast being lined up for the long-gestating Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody continues to grow — and its next addition has more of a cultural connection to the band than most.
Deadline reports that Wayne's World and Austin Powers star Mike Myers is in talks to join the production, which recently added Lucy Boynton to an ensemble already led by Rami Malek (who'll play late singer Freddie Mercury) and rounded out by Gwilym Lee as guitarist Brian May, Ben Hardy as drummer Roger Taylor and Joe Mazello as bassist John Deacon.
According to sources, Myers is still negotiating, and it remains unclear who he'll play. Given his penchant for disappearing into prosthetics and/or unfamiliar mannerisms — as he's currently doing in his duties as host "Tommy Maitland" on the latest Gong Show revival — there's every chance audiences won't even recognize Myers if he ends up joining the cast, but his involvement adds a sweet footnote to the film about a band he helped return to the upper reaches of the charts in the early '90s.
Myers' massive 1992 hit Wayne's World included a beloved bit in which his character and a group of friends drive around while listening to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," engaging in some expert lip-synching and epic head banging along the way. The scene sent "Rhapsody" surging back up the pop charts, where it peaked at No. 2 in the U.S., more than 16 years after its initial release. As Myers later admitted, the studio would have preferred to use a Guns N' Roses track instead, but he insisted on the Queen classic.
"Queen, at that point, not by me and not by hardcore fans, but the public had sort of forgotten about them," Myers recalled in a 2014 interview. "Freddie had gotten sick, the last time we had seen them was on Live Aid and then there were a few albums after where they were sort of straying away from their arena-rock roots. But I always loved ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ I thought it was a masterpiece. So I fought really, really hard for it. And at one point I said, ‘Well, I’m out. I don’t want to make this movie if it’s not ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.'"
Everything You Need to Know About the Queen Movie 'Bohemian Rhapsody'