Let’s Face It… Mike Myers’s Addition To Bohemian Rhapsody Was Priceless
You probably know this guy right? Good. Mike Myers has a long lasting love affair with Queen’s music, and that’s why I think his appearance in Bohemian Rhapsody was brilliant. Just brilliant.
Myers plays EMI executive Ray Foster in Bohemian Rhapsody and he adamantly refuses to have the six-minute song “Bohemian Rhapsody” released as the album’s first single.
His role in Queen’s biopic Bohemian Rhapsody is teeny tiny but one particular line of his was just priceless.
“What about ‘I’m in Love with my Car’?” Myers’ character suggests to the band in the film. “That’s the kind of song teenagers can crank up the volume in their car and bang their heads to. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ will never be that song.”
You know why everything about this scene is hilarious don’t you?
Well, apparently Myers fought for the opposite when he was making Wayne’s World in 1992. Yeah, he clashed with Lorne Michaels over the use of Bohemian Rhapsody when he was making Wayne’s World and even threatened to leave the production if Queen’s song was not put in the classic car scene.
Michaels wanted Myers to use a Guns N’ Roses song (due to the band’s popularity in the early 90’s) but Myers refused, claiming that he couldn’t relate to any of their songs.
In the end Lorne said ‘if you are that passionate about it, it can stay’ so it got in.
So, 26 years before he told Queen not to release a 6 minutes long song that nobody will understand, Wayne, Garth and a bunch of stoners were banging their heads to Bohemian Rhapsody.
And it was a risky move on behalf of Michaels and Myers I must say. Wayne’s World was green-lit in 1991, and Mercury didn’t live to see the song’s renaissance as he had become rock’s most famous AIDS casualty just a few months before the film’s release.
However, according to guitarist Brian May, Mercury did give permission for the song to be used and saw the clips while he was close to death because Mike Myers had sent a tape and wanted him to see it.
But despite having the song associated with Mercury so soon after his untimely death, that scene in Wayne’s World had the most positive feedback with the audience.
The film is credited with reviving the popularity of the British rock band Queen in the United States through its use of their 1975 song “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and “Wayne’s World” brought Queen to a whole new generation in 1992.
There were plenty more head-banging to Bohemian Rhapsody after Wayne’s World and it’s all thanks to Mike Myers.
