'Rocketman' Video Features Taron Egerton Actually Singing, Unlike A Certain Oscar Winner

If Rami Malek won an Oscar largely for lip synching as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, that should mean Hollywood is going to award Taron Egerton with an Oscar in the upcoming Elton John biopic Rocketman for actually singing...right?

Egerton took the stage with the legendary musician to sing "Tiny Dancer," and the timing of this performance strikes me as interesting: as Malek picked up his trophy on the Oscar stage, Egerton was belting out a tune and potentially kicking off a possible Best Actor campaign for next year's Oscars. This is very possibly a case of accidental shade, but the timing was amusing nonetheless.

Keep reading to see Egerton rock out with Elton John in the new video.

Not bad, right? I mean, it's basically impossible for anyone to be able to dethrone this song's position in the pop culture pantheon after its appearance in Almost Famous, but Egerton does a valiant job here. At the 27th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party (which ended up raising $6.3 million to end AIDS), Egerton was brought up on the stage for an impromptu performance. Here's the official description of what went down:

Following a short preview of the trailer and a round of bidding on a trip to the London premiere of the film, the audience was taken by surprise when [Alexander] Gilkes asked Taron to sing one of Elton John's songs. Only agreeing to the performance if Elton played the piano, guests were brought to their feet as they watched Elton John take his position on the keys while Taron belted out the lyrics to one of his most beloved ballads, "Tiny Dancer."

While Rami Malek unquestionably embodied Freddie Mercury's physicality in Bohemian Rhapsody, his actual voice wasn't primarily featured in the movie. Several reports indicated that Mercury's voice was used, along with that of Mercury soundalike Marc Martel – though Malek's voice was apparently also used to a small degree in the music sequences as well. In stark contrast, Egerton will be singing not only in this little viral video, but also throughout Rocketman.

Rocketman is an unconventional Elton John biopic directed by Dexter Fletcher – who, ironically, is the same guy who stepped in to finish directing Bohemian Rhapsody after original filmmaker Bryan Singer was fired. This isn't the first time Egerton has performed an Elton John song, either: he performed "I'm Still Standing" for the animated movie Sing.

Rocketman is slated to hit theaters on May 31, 2019.