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  • Can you go a bit higher?"

  • ”I can't go any higher, only dogs will hear me!"

  • "Try."

  • Queen biopic 'Bohemian Rhapsody' hit theaters November 2 - with 'Mr. Robot' star

  • Rami Malek bringing the bands charismatic frontman Freddie Mercury back to life in

  • a performance that has gained widespread praise.

  • For Malek to embody Mercury's energy and flamboyance, he had to undergo a

  • dramatic transformation which involved some serious make-up and the guidance of

  • a movement coach. Hair and makeup department head Jan Sewell was the artist

  • tasked with taking 37 year old Malek from Mercury at age 19 into his late 30s.

  • Sewell used eye makeupwith shading to make his eyes appear closer together

  • and shaded in his cheeks. "Rami has a fantastic jawline, not too different from

  • Freddie, but I brought that out even more,” she says.

  • The department also had multiple mouthfuls of teeth made to more closely match

  • Mercury's distinctive pearly whites. According to Sewell, “we went through many

  • pairs until we got the pair that we thought would do what we needed them to do,

  • but wouldn't take over." Turns out the precision of Sewell's artistry was proven when

  • Queen bandmember Brian May's wife, Anita, came to set. Says Sewell: "Rami came up

  • to the stage as Freddie in his later look, and she burst into tears. It was so emotional."

  • Meanwhile, Movement director Polly Bennett was given the job of getting Malek to

  • move like Mercury. At their first meeting, Bennett told the 'Mr. Robot' actor she wasn't

  • going to teach him choreography in the traditional sense. "You need to understand

  • why this man moves the way that he did," she told him. "That's what's helpful for an

  • actor. Rami isn't a dancer. Therefore, I shouldn't be treating him as one."

  • In order to help Malek truly inhabit the role, Bennett did a deep dive into Mercury's life,

  • not just examining footage of interviews and performances, but also delving into his

  • youth so she could deconstruct Mercury's movements.

  • Two interesting discoveries were that Mercury frequently masked his mouth using a

  • microphone, cigarette or glass because he was self-conscious about his teeth and that

  • he had been a long-distance runner in his youth, which contributed to the way he sprinted

  • across the stage. Bennett explains that her greatest challenge was combining

  • Mercury's spontaneity with the film's faithful frame-by-frame re-creation of Queen's

  • 1985 Live Aid performance.

  • While Sewell's moment came in the form of Anita May's emotional reaction, for Bennett,

  • it was when she watched Malek perform the 20-minute Live Aid set from beginning

  • to end.

  • To read more on this story, head to THR.com.

  • For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Lyndsey Rodrigues.

Can you go a bit higher?"

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