Animal Oscar Contenders: Bohemian Rhapsody

Queen frontman Freddie Mercury was very much a cat person, at one time keeping as many as 10 felines. And Fox’s biopic Bohemian Rhapsody includes several scenes showing off the rocker’s resident pets in his lavish London home.

Unfortunately for Rami Malek, who stars as Mercury in the film, his furry co-stars didn’t quite agree with him. Widely known for his performance as Elliot on Mr. Robot, Malek says he’s allergic to cats and had avoided working with them. The Emmy winner adds that early on in production on the USA drama, he managed to convince showrunner Sam Esmail to change the computer programmer’s pet from a cat to a fish.

“His fish in the show — its name is Qwerty. Qwerty was initially a cat, and I said, ‘No cats,’ ” says Malek. “And then he brought on a dog, a big, white, fluffy dog, and I said, ‘Are we doing a sitcom?’ And nothing against sitcoms, but I realized that with Sam the only thing you need to get him to do to change an idea is say, ‘I think I saw this on a sitcom once.’ And you’ll get your way.”

But there was no switching out the cats for fish when it came time to play Mercury.

“When those cats were around, I was not the happiest human being,” the Golden Globe nominee says. “But I thought, ‘Hey, if Freddie loved them so much, I guess I’ve got to tough this one out.’ There was lots of sneezing.”