10 Biggest Lies Actors Told To Get Movie Roles

4. Ben Hardy Wanted To Join Bohemian Rhapsody, So Claimed He Could Play The Drums

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BBC

If you want to play one of the greatest drummers of all time, it's probably best that you can play the drums, right? Well, amazingly, Ben Hardy had never touched a drum kit in his life, but still managed to snag the role of Roger Taylor in Bohemian Rhapsody.

After working with Bryan Singer on X-Men: Apocalypse, Hardy discovered that the director's next film was going to be about rock band Queen. Wanting to play one of the musical legends himself, Hardy called Singer and asked if he could play Roger Taylor, to which Singer replied that he wanted someone who could convincingly play the drums. Desperate for the part, Hardy lied and said that he could.

The actor told People that he then had to learn how to drum in around two weeks, and even recorded a video of himself playing a Queen song, which he sent over to Singer. Against all the odds, everything went well, and he successfully won the part:

“I wanted the job really bad. Who doesn’t want to play a rock’ n roll star? So I told him a little white lie - slash - big lie, that I could play the drums. So he was like great, can you put this song on film for me to show to the producers. I went away in a massive panic, there wasn’t enough time - I bought the cheapest drum kit I could find and found a drum teacher locally and was like, ‘Look here’s the deal I need to learn to play this song as soon as possible, what can you do?’ Bryan messaged me and was like ‘Where’s the video?’ I was like, ‘Here is the moment, gonna have to do it', so I put it on film and just prayed."

It's unclear whether or not Singer actually found out about this, but from the audience's perspective at least, it was impossible to tell that Hardy was an amateur.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.