Taron Egerton worries ‘Rocketman’ is "doomed to fail".
The 29-year-old actor portrays Sir Elton John in the upcoming biopic and though his only concern was to make a "good film", he knows it will be compared with award-winning Queen movie ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
He told Britain’s GQ magazine: "I often feel a bit like we’re doomed to fail by comparison. Because we’ll always be the guys who came after. But such is life. You know all I care about? That it’s a good film."
The movie’s producer is Elton’s husband David Furnish, and he admitted the project was in the works for over 12 years but it took the success of musicals such as ‘La La Land’ and ‘The Greatest Showman’ for it to come to fruition.
He said: "Everything in the film business takes a while and we’re lucky that right now there’s a real appetite for cinema that has music at its heart. During the time when we were developing our film, the industry was geared towards big blockbusters – superhero movies and tent-pole movies. We didn’t fit into that box…
"We kept our heads down and worked away, but really it wasn’t until ‘La La Land’ cleaned up on the awards circuit and became a huge, buzzed-about film that we realised there was an audience for these kinds of stories.
"The key to that was someone taking contemporary music and bringing it to life cinematically. They found a connection with the audience. You can see it in ‘The Greatest Showman’ too [and] ‘A Star Is Born’. Hollywood’s the sort of town that, because everything is so expensive, people like to get an indication that something’s really going to fly."
One of the reasons why Taron was cast was his singing ability, but he’s modest about his talents.
He said: "That’s the calling card for the film, I suppose. That’s kind of been the root of everything, the fact that I can just about hold a tune. I’m probably being… I love it, but… I just hope I’m good."
Taron Egerton’s Rocketman fears
