Bohemian Rhapsody: Rami Malek reveals his SECRET to playing Freddie Mercury

The 37-year-old has wowed Queen fans around the world in box office smash Bohemian Rhapsody.

Nominated for a Golden Globe and SAG award, Malek’s uncanny performance may also see him get a Best Actor Oscar nod too.

Now the actor has revealed the secret of playing Freddie Mercury is found in his songwriting.

Speaking with Mark Kermode at this month’s MK3D BFI event, Malek said: “You see him as this rock god, this deity, a monolith, and he gets out there in this crown and cape.”

Malek continued: “It was very difficult to ever think that I was going to step into his shoes or get anywhere close to portraying that element of him.

“And like I said, I watched all the footage, I tried to get as much insight as I could from the living legends of the band and from Freddie’s sister Kash.

“But ultimately I realised what I had was a diary of sorts in all of his songs.

“So if you look at Lily of the Valley, and he sings, I mean he writes down as if it’s a piece of poetry.”

The actor continued: “In one sense you hear this sense of loneliness and profound alienation and longing for love. He’s ethereal and poetic.

“And he’ll tell you, ‘I’m not the world’s greatest songwriter, in fact, I hate writing songs.’

“But if you go back and look at what he put down, it stands alone as just great literature.

“And then when he put his voice behind it, well he’s singing the most powerful things that he feels so deeply inside.”

Malek added: “And if you’re going to sing them over and over and over, night after night, you know they’re coming from a very deep, dark place.”

In another interview, with the Wrap, the actor revealed what terrified him about Freddie.

He said: “There was one thing I was concerned wearing, and that was the leotard. There’s a harlequin one, but the one I was worried about the most was the sequin one because it really leaves nothing to the imagination.

“Not only are you walking out there basically naked, but then you have to strut on stage with the utmost confidence.”