Freddie Mercury's 2011 Cup Noodles Commercial

An amazing feeling coming to a noodle near you.

Whenever I hear a Queen song in a commercial, I have the opposite reaction many rock fans might have. Instead of thinking how my heroes have sold out or are ruining their legacy somehow, I regard it as another triumph, another victory lap of Queen’s music as the soundtrack to our lives, or at least mine.

One such example: this 2011 Japanese commercial for Nissin Cup Noodles features footage of Freddie Mercury from his video for “I Was Born To Love You,” a single from his only true solo album, Mr. Bad Guy.

In the original video, Freddie wears a Diane Moseley-designed military costume and does his stage dancing in a room full of mirrors. In other scenes not used in the commercial, we have Freddie chasing down a woman love interest, culminating in music cinema’s least convincing on-screen kiss. There is also a scene where hundreds of women in what looks to be Greek mythology Rockettes outfits goose-step on a soundstage. It’s all very Leni Riefenstahl, and non-apologetically so.

Back to the noodles commercial. The arrangement in the video is not from Mr. Bad Guy, but is instead the one used in Queen’s Made in Heaven album. This posthumous version, with some of the keyboards parts replaced by tasty Brian May licks, rocks hard.

And who is singing? Certainly Freddie didn’t re-animate himself and sing about cups and noodles, right? Someone else must have done the honors.

I didn’t know until I wrote this, but the Freddie voice used in this commercial is none other than Gary Mullen, who as a 25-year-old Glaswegian won the competition show Stars in Their Eyes in 2000. Eleven years later, he was tapped to sing as Freddie singing the praises of Nissin Cup Noodles. He now tours the world as Gary Mullen and The Works.

If this were done today, it might be by Mercury soundalike Marc Martel, or done with AI tools, or maybe . There is a convincing-ish Freddie AI making the rounds as I write this, doing covers of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

I would love to interview Mullen, not about winning the TV competition or even touring the world singing Queen songs, but just about this commercial. How many takes? How did he get the gig? Was he paid a lot? Did he know the solo song beforehand? Did he get to go to Japan?

And, most importantly, did he get a lifetime supply of Nissin Cup Noodles?