CASTING CALL

Sacha Baron Cohen to Play Freddie Mercury

In a Hollywood biopic.

Very niiice! Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who starred as a clueless Kazakh reporter in Borat and an Austrian fashionista in Bruno, is set to play another flamboyant character: Queen singer Freddie Mercury. Producers of the film, written by Peter Morgan (The Queen) and still without a director, said Thursday that the movie will focus on the years leading up to what many consider Queen’s defining moment as a band: their performance at 1985’s Live Aid charity concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. Mercury died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 45. Shooting on the film will begin next year, according to producer Graham King (The Departed), and the project, which has the full cooperation of the surviving members of Queen and Mercury's estate, will feature both original Queen music and Mercury solo music.