Taron Egerton became Elton John’s housemate to help him prepare for ‘Rocketman’

Virgin Radio

20 Apr 2019, 18:00

The 29-year-old ‘Kingsman’ star is playing the music legend in the new film about his life and global rise to fame. Egerton explained how spending time with Sir Elton helped his performance but said he was glad the star never watched any of his on-set performances.

He told magazine: "I spent a fair bit of time with him before we started shooting. He didn’t come on set, thank God, I’d have found that really hard. But…I went and stayed with him before we started shooting and he let me read his diaries and I hung out with him and got to ask him things….which certainly protects me a bit.”

It was confirmed this week that Taron is actually singing on a lot of the songs in the film. He spoke about how much work he had to do to make sure he sounded like Elton.

He said: "I have to say, I think when your primary objective is sounding like someone, then you slightly sacrifice a purity of expression and a real humanity. It can become a little bit sterile…And I absolutely didn’t want to do that because this is about illuminating someone’s life and what’s really going on with them.

Credit: Getty Images / Rich Fury

The actor added: "So there’s inevitably a bit of Taron in there because we’re talking about the spirit of someone and about their inner life and their drug addiction, not about the way they move their mouth in an interview."

Rocketman

is released in UK cinemas on 24 May