At Cannes, Oscar winner Rami Malek explained why he hesitated to star in Ira Sachs' gay drama 'The Man I Love' after portraying Freddie Mercury.

After his Oscar-winning portrayal of the queer icon in the 2018 biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody," the actor hesitated to accept the lead in Ira Sachs' musical drama "The Man I Love."

Rami Malek believed that it 'could be problematic' to play a gay man in his new drama after portraying Freddie Mercury in an Oscar-winning role eight years earlier.

Rami Malek nearly passed up on the chance to star in The Man I Love due to the comparisons between the character of Jimmy George and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, who he played in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

Rami Malek opened up during a press conference at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival about his initial reluctance to star in director Ira Sachs‘ new musical drama The Man I Love, according to a Thursday, May 21 report from Entertainment Weekly.

Rami Malek says he was initially hesitant to star in The Man I Love, explaining how the role differed from playing Freddie Mercury.

Rami Malek almost turned down the lead role in "The Man I Love". The parallels to Freddie Mercury were initially too great for the Oscar winner. Only his trust in director Ira Sachs convinced him to star in the film after all.

Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias tell IndieWire about the beauty and horror of gay life in 1980s NYC, and borrowing their film's title from the 1941 Raoul Walsh classic.

A review of 'The Man I Love' , the latest from Ira Sachs premiering at Cannes Film Festival and set near the beginning of AIDs Crisis among NYC artists