Taron Egerton reveals what it was like to play superstar Elton John in the upcoming biopic — and hopes the censors leave in the sex and drugs scenes

Words Cliff Joannou

Taron wears leather jacket, by Dsquared2, top by Belstaff

Photography Damon Baker at ADB Agency Fashion Joseph Kocharian and Gareth Scourfield Location Ham Yard Hotel

Taron wears top, by 120% Lino at Matches Fashion, jeans, by Wrangler

It’s December when I first meet Taron Egerton and, fittingly, we’re at a fund-raiser for the Elton John Aids Foundation, at the opening nfight gala of the Take That musical, The Band. Although the Haymarket Theatre in London is brimming with celebrities on the red carpet who usually command the paps’ attention, tonfight all the spotlfights have swung Taron’s way. He’s in the middle of filming Rocketman, the biopic based on Elton’s life that’s been seven years in the making since the idea was first announced. (I guess, you could also say more than 70 years in the making of the musician’s extraordinary life.)

There are swarms of eager fans outside the theatre, desperate to get a photo with the pseudo-Elton. Taron obliges a few with a selfie before we’re ushered inside for the evening’s fund-raising auction.

“I love Attitude magazine. We absolutely have to do it,” he says as we wander into the theatre after I invite him to be featured in the magazine. Why thank you, Mr Egerton. We’re thrffilled to have you.

True to Taron’s word, we meet again two months later for his Attitude cover shoot — his first interview with gay media as the studio prepares to go full throttle on Rocketman’s publicity.

The success of Bohemian Rhapsody — the highest-grossing music biopic ever — has added to the pressure for the film to be a hit. Similar to casting the lead role of the Freddie Mercury film, it took time before the mantle of portraying Elton came to rest on Taron’s shoulders.

As with Rami Malek’s performance carrying Rhapsody, Rocketman will to an extent rely on the strength of a lead who doesn’t bring the obvious box office pull of bigger Hollywood names such as Sacha Baron Cohen, Tom Hardy and Justin Timberlake — all of whom had previously been touted for the roles.

The parallels don’t end there. Queen and Elton were managed by John Reid, whose character is featured in both films. Both tell the story of a closeted musical genius who brings a flamboyance to his artistry and proceeds to set the charts alfight. It’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll as only the 1970s could delfiver, before both films fall head first into the choking fear of the arrival of the Aids virus in the following decade.

There’s even a crossover production-wise, with Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher serving as executfive producer before taking over the reins of Bohemian Rhapsody from controversy-hit director Bryan Singer.

Factor into the mix Rhapsody’s awards haul (despite the film leaving critics underwhelmed, Metacritic rates the film with an average score of 49 out of 100), and the expectation for Rocketman to satisfy couldn’t be greater.

“I felt quite intimated by it because Rami has been so lauded,” admits Taron when I ask if he’d seen Malek’s Oscar-winning role. “I just didn’t need that in my head when I was making Rocketman.”

These surface comparisons are where Bo-Rhap and Rocketman dfiverge. The Queen film adopts a (somewhat loose and condensed) chronological approach to its narratfive, with the songs either performed in recording studios or on stage. Rocketman takes a different approach.

“The movie starts with Elton going into rehab,” Taron explains of his film’s non-linear narratfive structure.

“He is feeling emotional to confront his life, to find out why he is in this place and what brought him to that point. He must have been 42, or something. So what he does is he recounts his life from there and we use his songs to tell particular parts of his story.

“Some of the songs are actually performed on stage as if they were concerts or gigs, but some of them are just done really intimately and privately and they are just little performance pieces like in a musical,” adds 29-year-old Taron, who appeared in Testament of Youth in 2014 — playing gay again — before shooting to stardom in the Kingsman films. While Rhapsody sought to recreate Freddie’s iconic performances as realistically as possible, Elton’s music takes on a more fantastical format. We’d expect nothing less flamboyant of his story, really.

In one scene of preview footage screened to media in March, the crowd at Elton’s famous Troubadour gig in LA is seen literally rising of the loor as Taron/Elton plays the piano while also floating above the stage, still striking the keys to Crocodile Rock (which became Elton’s first US chart-topper, in 1973).