Without Mary Austin, it's hard to say where Freddie Mercury and by extension, Queen would've
ended up.
Austin was a lover, confidant, and friend to the legendary rock star, and helped Mercury
reach the heights of superstardom.
British-American actress Lucy Boynton played Austin on the big screen in Bohemian Rhapsody,
and she sure looked familiar.
Here are a few roles you may have seen Boynton in before her big breakthrough.
Even though Bohemian Rhapsody gave Boynton a chance to show off her dramatic acting chops,
she's made a name for herself in horror movie circles.
One of her more recent features, Apostle, is a bloody period piece that fits squarely
in that category.
Apostle tells the story of a man in 1905 trying to rescue his kidnapped sister from a dangerous
religious cult on a remote island.
As supplies on the island run low and the faithful begin to lose hope, the group's leader,
Prophet Malcolm, begins to take more desperate and drastic measures.
Boynton plays Prophet Malcolm's daughter, Andrea, who is beginning to understand the
evil that her father is capable of.
Bohemian Rhapsody was not Boynton's first turn in a star-studded major motion picture.
Just a year before the Oscar-nominated biopic, the actress was cast as Countess Elena in
director Kenneth Branagh's retelling of the Agatha Christie classic Murder on the Orient
Express.
The timid Countess hides a shadowy past and continually takes drugs to help her sleep
during the day.
As such, Boynton described the character to Vanity Fair as being easily confused, because
she's frequently unsure whether it's day or night.
To help convey that sense, the actress tried to express, quote, "a feeling of a slightly
damaged butterfly."
In an interview with W magazine, Boynton said that she would like to play a wide variety
of characters in her career, but darker roles appeals to her more.
That would certainly apply to her role in the Netflix series Gypsy.
Boynton plays Allison Adams, a pill addict who is seeking treatment from a therapist
played by Naomi Watts, a woman with her own set of issues.
As Allison gets deeper into her treatment, Jean struggles to stay within the typical
boundaries that exist between a counselor and her patient.
Boynton talked with Entertainment Weekly about the experience of making the show, saying
she was drawn to the dark project because the writing allows viewers to see, quote,
"the truest, dirtiest sides of people."
Speaking of dark projects, director Polly Steele's Let Me Go was crowdfunded and based
on the autobiographical book of the same name by Helga Schneider about learning that her
estranged mother had been a guard at a Nazi concentration camp.
The film tells the story from the perspective of Helga, who, at age 60, receives a letter
detailing her aging mother's whereabouts.
Along with her daughter Beth and her granddaughter Emily, played by Boynton, Helga travels to
Vienna to see her mother one last time, where she finds the matriarch remorseless about
her role in the Holocaust.
Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger was a notorious recluse until his death in 2010,
and refused to allow a film adaptation of his novel to be made, saying it was, quote,
"unactable."
Director Danny Strong attempted the next best thing with Rebel in the Rye, which chronicles
the life of Salinger as he wrote the landmark novel.
Nicholas Hoult plays a young Salinger, who along the way meets Claire Douglas, played
by Boynton.
In real life, Douglas was the inspiration for Franny Glass, the character featured in
Salinger's Franny and Zooey.
Horror films were a hallmark of Lucy Boynton's early career.
Don't Knock Twice, like Let Me Go, is a story about mothers and daughters, except with way
more ghosts.
Boynton plays Chloe, a teenager who unwittingly awakens a witch living in an abandoned house.
In an effort to escape the evil, Chloe flees to the country to stay with her estranged
mother, Jess.
Jess is a successful artist who lives with her lawyer husband and now wants to reconnect
with her daughter after previously losing her to foster care because of a substance
abuse problem.
But the witch problem they're all facing now may prove worse!
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House was the second collaboration between Boynton
and director Osgood "Oz" Perkins, the son of Psycho star Anthony Perkins.
Much like his father's most famous flick, the movie centers around a dwelling where
creepy things happen.
In this case, it's the 200-year-old New England home of Iris Blum, a popular author of horror
novels.
Things get weird when Miss Blum's new nurse, Lily, realizes that the old woman is talking
to someone named Polly who doesn't appear to be there, or is she?
Boyton plays Polly, the main character of The Lady in the Wall, one of Blum's novels
from decades ago.
But it's possible that Polly is more than just a fictional character.
In flashbacks, Polly is seen as a young woman condemned to a terrible fate.
Sing Street was Boynton's first lead acting role, having been previously relegated to
supporting characters.
The musical story about a teenager in Dublin trying to start a band in order to impress
a girl was popular at Sundance when it premiered in 2016, and was nominated for a Golden Globe
for best picture: musical or comedy.
"Why'd you do that, then?"
"For our art, Cosmo!
You can never do anything by half."
Boynton plays Raphina, an aspiring model being wooed by 14-year-old Conor "Cosmo" Lawlor.
For Boynton, the film was a new experience it was one of the few times in her young career
that she was one of the oldest actors on set.
In 2015, Boyton teamed up with director Oz Perkins for the first time in The Blackcoat's
Daughter, a film that was originally called February when it made its premiere at the
Toronto Film Festival.
After being held in release date limbo for more than a year, the movie hit streaming
services with a new title.
In the movie, Kat, played by Kiernan Shipka, and Rose, played by Boynton, are stuck at
a Catholic girls' boarding school when a mysterious young woman arrives.
Before too long, Kat and Rose are left to battle an unforeseen evil.
Copperhead is a period drama that was only Boynton's second film credit.
In the movie, Boynton plays Esther Hagadorn, daughter of a hardline upstate New York abolitionist
during the Civil War.
Esther falls in love with Jeff Beech, the son of a pacifist.
The vast political difference between the lovers' fathers threatens to derail their
relationship.
The movie was based on the book The Copperhead by Harold Frederic, which examined the differing
political attitudes that existed on the homefront during America's Civil War.
Boynton made her big screen debut in Miss Potter at the age of 11.
She was cast as a young Beatrix Potter, the famed author who created The Tale of Peter
Rabbit and a number of other classic children's books with charming animal characters.
It didn't take long for young Lucy to be bitten by the acting bug.
She told WWD that on her first day on the set of Miss Potter, she decided that nothing
else, quote, "could make [her] as happy or feel as fulfilled as acting does."
"You can't stand in the way of progress!"
"So they say."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite actors are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.