FUSE TV - Sacha Baron Cohen Explains Why He Left Freddie Mercury Biopic

Sacha Baron Cohen was given what many would consider the role of a lifetime: Freddie Mercury in an upcoming Queen biopic. But the Borat star says he reached a breaking point due to some creative differences in the storyline and left the still-unfinished film in 2013.

During an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Cohen made a rare, out-of-character appearance to promote his new film The Brothers Grimsby and gave an in-depth explanation of why he left the project despite years of work put into it:

"You’ve got to remember that they want to protect their legacy as a band, and they want it to be about Queen. And I fully understand that. [After] my first meeting, I should never have carried on because a member of the band—I won’t say who—said, ‘This is such a great movie, because such an amazing thing happens in the middle of the movie.’ I go, ‘What happens in the middle of the movie?’ He goes, ‘Freddie dies.’ I go, ‘So you mean it’s a bit like Pulp Fiction, where the end is the middle and the middle is the end? That’s interesting.’ He goes, ‘No no no.’ So I said, ‘Wait a minute. What happens in the second half of the movie?’ And he said, ‘Well, we see how the band carries on from strength to strength.’ And I said, ‘Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS and then you carry on to see [what happens to the band]."