With the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ biopic topping box office charts all around the world this week people are asking is that really Rami Malek singing, is it really Freddie Mercury.
In the context of “look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, its Superman’ Freddie Mercury impersonator Marc Martell is the Superman. Well, sort of.
Malek is singing over Freddie’s vocals but to make it sound authentic Marc Martel was recruited to even out the soundtrack.
“They hired me to do some of the singing in the movie and give the audience an immersive experience and not be able to tell where the singing is coming from,” said Martel to Noise11.”It is to make the audience believe they are really watching Freddie Mercury sing. I got to go to Abbey Road for a few weeks and do some recording there. It was the first time for me to see behind the curtain in the music industry. It was really fascinating fun and a very memorable experience.”
Martel recorded his parts before the movie started shooting. “The way it works in movies is that the actor played his part based on their performance so all of the music had to be prepared before shooting,” Marc said.
It was a great job for Martel but there were times were he sat around doing nothing. “It was fun, demanding even a little big tedious at times but all very well worth it,” he said.
The magic of Hollywood them went to work piecing the new Martel vocals with Freddie’s for Rami Malek to sing over to make it look authentic. “Queen offered all of their original songs to the movie,” he says. “The movie uses a mixture of Freddie’s tracks, me and Rami done in a way that you can’t tell”.
Recently Mike Myers revealed his history with Bohemian Rhapsody.
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ opened in 4000 cinemas across the USA and earned $18.4 million in ticket sales on Friday.
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