Before shooting Ira Sachs' The Man I Love, Rami Malek told himself he could not take the role. The reason was simple: it felt too close to the part that won him an Oscar.
In the new film, Malek plays Jimmy George, a fictional singer and performer navigating life in 1980s New York after a three-week hospital stay following an HIV episode. The character rehearses for a stage piece based on André Brassard's 1974 film Once Upon a Time in the East, playing a stormy and defiant character named Hélène, who performs with a band. The parallels to Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody were not lost on the actor, who noted that Mercury also suffered from AIDS.
"I can't do this, there's too many similarities," Malek said after reading the script. "It could be problematic. There was a certain sense of fear."
According to Deadline, Malek worked through that hesitation by leaning into what the two roles actually demanded of him. "I knew I had to address the fear," he said. "If there was anything that Freddie taught me it was to address the fear." He credited director Sachs with giving him the confidence to move forward. "If he was choosing me, I could rely on him, not only to depend on him throughout the film, but to elevate it, to push myself, to force myself to race into that fire. When I raced into, I started to discover that these were men who were similar, but they were also worlds apart."
Malek drew a direct contrast between Mercury and his new character. "You have an icon, a legend in Freddie who really had a destination whereas Jimmy is just searching for creativity, and love and intimacy and joy in every moment. Does he sing as well as Freddie, no." He added, "I see them as two radically different figures altogether."
The film is set against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan's America and what Malek described as its reactionary homophobia. Rather than dwelling on the hardship of Jimmy's illness, the story focuses on his drive to keep creating and to remain, as the film's framing puts it, unapologetically alive.
The Man I Love received a ten-minute standing ovation at its world premiere at Cannes. Mubi holds international rights outside the United States, with U.S. distribution still up for grabs. Sachs previously brought his 2019 film Frankie to Cannes.
