Ben Whishaw Will Rock You as Queen Frontman Freddie Mercury

Bryan Enk
·Contributor
Ben Whishaw and Freddy Mercury
Ben Whishaw and Freddy Mercury

We will ... we will rock you with some Very Important News.

There is finally someone officially taking over the vacated role of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the long-delayed biopic ... and that someone is Ben Whishaw.

Yeah, the guy who played Q in "Skyfall.

According to The Guardian, Whishaw's official casting comes two months after Queen drummer Roger Taylor mentioned his preference for the British actor to play Mercury. Whishaw is replacing Sacha Baron Cohen, who dropped out of the project earlier this fall ... which, despite the "Borat" star's striking physical resemblance to the Queen singer, is a good thing, at least according to Taylor.

"We felt Sacha probably wasn't right in the end," said Taylor in a recent interview with Mojo, most certainly in reference to Cohen's reputation for immersing himself into elaborate characterizations, creating outrageous personas such as Borat, Bruno, and Ali G, who are prone to entertaining and alienating in equal measure. "We didn't want it to be a joke. We want people to be moved."

And is Ben Whishaw the guy to "move" us as he belts out renditions of Queen's greatest hits? He played one of six incarnations of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' experimental (and awesome) biopic "I'm Not There" (2007), though he spent his entire role sitting at a table and talking to the camera.

[Related: Ben Whishaw Uses Gadget to Declare Pinewood's 'Q' Stage Officially Open]

He's certainly crooned a ditty or two on camera before, though — and well, at that. He played Ariel in Julie Taymor's weirdo adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (2010), in which he performed no less than three songs: "Darkened Sands," "Full Fathom Five," and "Where The Bee Sucks." You don't get to be Propero's (er, Prospera's) trusty supernatural sidekick without knowing how to hold a melody, you know.

Whishaw is no stranger to playing rock stars, either, having played Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in "Stoned" (2005), director Stephen Woolley's biopic about doomed Stones co-founder Brian Jones (Leo Gregory).

Besides his amusing turn as gadget maestro Q in last year's "Skyfall," Ben Whishaw's other roles include John Keats in "Bright Star" (2009), Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" (2006), Sidney in "Layer Cake" (2004), and several roles in the time-twisting "Cloud Atlas" (2012).

Queen formed in London in 1970 comprised of Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), John Deacon (bass guitar), and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals). While their early influences were progressive rock and heavy metal, they went on to develop a more unique "rock opera" style, becoming international sensations with their third and fourth albums, "Sheer Heart Attack" (1974) and "A Night at the Opera" (1975), the latter of which features the mega-hit single "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Deadline reports that Dexter Fletcher ("Sunshine on Leith") has signed on to direct the biopic, which will tell the formative coming-of-age story of the group and end with Queen headlining Live Aid in 1985, which is considered one of the best live rock performances of all time. The film won't touch on Mercury's AIDS-related death in 1991.

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