As announced by Deadline yesterday, Sacha Baron Cohen has officially signed on to play Queen’s late frontman Freddie Mercury in a biopic due to start shooting next year. The film will be scripted by Peter Morgan, who’s previously turned history into Oscar gold with Frost/Nixon and The Queen (the other one), and the good news is that the producers have actually nailed down rights to the band’s songs, so this is definitely a go. What isn’t clear yet is whether Cohen will actually be doing any singing—though our guess would be no—but he certainly looks the part, he’s had experience with assless pants, and of course there’s that famous Live Aid appearance where Mercury shit in a bag, and other Borat-related jokes.
Speaking of which, Vulture points out that this isn’t the first time Cohen has “played” Mercury: When Cohen-as-Borat hosted the MTV Europe Awards in 2005, he emerged in a low-slung Lycra leotard and said, “Hello it is me, Freddie Mercury. I joking, he die of AIDS. It me, Borat. I not a la la loo lee. The only sex disease I ever have is gonorrhea. Fifteen times! The ladies like Borat!”We’re probably going to see that clip a lot whenever this comes out.