One of the biggest knocks against Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar campaign is that Bryan Singer directed more than half of the film. Singer had to get the Directors Guild involved on the credits for the film, and he’s still listed officially as a producer and director for Bohemian Rhapsody. He left the production in a storm of controversy and dysfunction – he was missing full days of production, to the point where the production was even halted temporarily, and other people had to step in and cover for him. He was fired with weeks to go in the production, which was an extremely unusual step. They were also trying to finish up the production around the time that Singer was sued yet again for raping a teenage boy.

All of that went down in late November/early December 2017. Singer was fired from Bohemian Rhapsody officially in the first week of December 2017, and the trade papers too pains to say that he wasn’t fired because of the rumors of rape and pool parties, but because of his massively unprofessional behavior. The Hollywood Reporter even noted that Rami Malek went and “complained to the studio, charging Singer with not being present on set, unreliability and unprofessionalism.” It was reported that Singer and Malek had multiple clashes on the set and that Singer even “threw an object” at Rami. These are just some of the reasons why I didn’t think it was fair to slam Rami for “working with Bryan Singer” on the film – they didn’t even get along, and Rami was actually one of the big reasons why Singer was fired. As it turns out, Rami now says that when he signed on to Bohemian Rhapsody, he hadn’t even heard the Singer rumors.

Rami Malek put all of his focus into portraying Queen frontman Freddie Mercury — so much so that he wasn’t aware of the allegations surrounding the film’s director Bryan Singer. On Tuesday, shortly after learning he earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in Bohemian Rhapsody, Malek, 37, explained where his mindset was in the early stages of filming the blockbuster biopic.

“As far as I knew, I was considered before Bryan was even attached,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “So I had my head down preparing for this for about a year ahead of time, and I never really looked up.”

Of his time working with Singer, 53, who was repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct, Malek said, “I didn’t know much about Bryan. I think that the allegations and things were, believe it or not, honestly something I was not aware of, and that is what it is. Who knows what happens with that … but I think somehow we found a way to persevere through everything that was thrown our way,” he continued. “Perhaps that was Freddie himself doing it because we wanted to make a product that was worthy of him. Who knows? I’m just proud that this cast and crew collectively raised their game and we depended on one another.”

“It was a testament to everyone’s spirit and courage and skill. And one thing I will say about everyone — almost everyone — we never gave up,” the actor added.

[From People]

Well… those answers were not great? Bohemian Rhapsody picked up five Oscar nominations – Best Picture, Best Actor, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Rami was seen as a consensus Oscar pick, but the association with Singer was seen as the one major weak spot of his campaign, that if Oscar voters chose Rami, they were somehow rewarding Singer too. I believe him about being attached to the film before Singer, and maybe I believe that he hadn’t heard all of the rumors about Singer. But his reaction now – “Who knows what happens with that” – is not the best. I don’t know – maybe this is all moot. Christian Bale seems to be surging in the Oscar race.

Photos courtesy of WENN.