After winning an Oscar for his portrayal of Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek is zeroing in on his next musical movie role: Prince.
At least that was the subject of a hilarious Saturday Night Live skit on Oct. 16, in which the 40-year-old Bohemian Rhapsody actor portrayed The Purple One during an audition for director Jordan Peele’s imaginary biopic about the mysterious artist.
In the nearly five-minute skit, titled “Prince Auditions,” Malek goes head-to-head with SNL’s Kenan Thompson in front of a panel comprising Peele (played by Chris Redd) and casting directors (Punkie Johnson and Ego Nwodim).
“You guys are by far our top two choices to play Prince in my new biopic,” Redd’s Peele tells the actors, who are both comically dressed as Prince. “So the only way to settle this is to have a Prince-off.”
The Get Out director clarifies, “I’ll call out some random scenes from the script and you two will give me your absolute best Prince performance at the same time.”
From there, the casting panel rattles such oddball requests as Prince getting pelted in the legs with a football, Prince stepping on a Lego, and Prince getting a COVID test “but they go up too far.”
Although it’s a tough call, the panel decides that Malek can’t play Prince because he’s not Black. “But my parents are from Egypt and that’s in Africa,” Malek argues. “Doesn’t Prince transcend race?” Redd’s Peele quickly responds, “Not in this movie, no.”
Shortly after Thompson is given the role, British actor and former SNL host Daniel Craig crashes the audition dressed as a medieval prince and ends up nabbing the part because he’s James Bond.
See SNL’s “Prince Auditions” skit below, and watch the full episode of SNL on Hulu here. The streaming service is currently offering a 30-day free trial, which you can sign up for here.