In a new interview with RollingStone.com, QUEEN guitarist Brian May discusses a number of topics, including a new Queen studio album and the upcoming FREDDIE MERCURY biopic. A couple of excerpts follow:

Q: What can you tell us about the "new" studio album from Queen?

A: "Well, there's something coming. I'm not really quite sure what it is yet. I don't know if there's a whole album. There's a piece of an album. We were looking at putting together a compilation of the more unusual and yet memorable Queen tracks. Things that weren't singles that have become or stayed popular through the years. That's the way it started and then we unearthed a few tapes of Freddie singing and us in the studio that we never finished off. We thought we got to the end of it with Made In Heaven. But there are a few other things which have turned up. So the album may turn out to be a mixture of some unusual things from the past and some very unusual things which no one has heard at all."

Q: With newly recorded backing tracks?

A: "Yeah. Roger and I have both been working on tracks in our spare time. A couple of them have MICHAEL JACKSON on as well, which adds another layer of interest. Freddie and Michael singing together and experimenting in the Eighties."

Q: As far as the Freddie biopic, why did Sacha Baron Cohen drop out?

A: "There was a story put out by Sacha's publicist - I think that's where it came from - that Sacha had walked out in disgust because we didn't want to make a film with the kind of script we approved. But none of that was true. We parted amicably. We're still in touch and we're still good friends. We just came to the conclusions that it wasn't going to work with Sacha in the leading role. He's brilliant. But we felt that having Sacha in there would be so distracting because he's such a powerful persona and the characters he makes tend to stand out in a way that wouldn't be suitable for the film. Freddie has to be, in this movie, completely believable. You have to not question for an instant that you're watching Freddie, and that couldn't have happened with Sacha."

Q: Now you have a new star, Ben Whishaw.

A: "Roger mentioned Ben in an interview a few months ago. I think he got carried away. But that's fine. He wasn't the only person we were talking to. But he's a great actor and he's exactly the right kind've material, because he's not that well known a face yet but he's of international stature. The script depicts Freddie in a very lifelike way, but in the context of Queen, which was a kind've family. So it's about what happens in families, in a sense, and I think people will find it very touching."

Read the full interview at RollingStone.com.