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Last week at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, I got to talk with Taron Egerton backstage at the closing night Awards ceremony. He was in town to help promote director Otto Bathurst’s Robin Hood, as well as receive the “CinemaCon Action Star of the Year” award from The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO).

While the first trailer for Robin Hood should be online tomorrow, I got to see some footage at the convention and one of the things that surprised me was seeing Egerton alongside Ben Mendelsohn as the Sheriff of Nottingham, discussing ways to catch his alter ego, Robin Hood. I’ve seen a few Robin Hood movies and don’t remember any version where the two characters were working together. It was an interesting twist. In addition to seeing Egerton and Mendelsohn, the footage also revealed Jamie Foxx as Little John, Jamie Dornan as Will Scarlett, and Eve Hewson as Maid Marian.

As you can see in the player above, when I started talking with Egerton about Robin Hood, he revealed a bit more about his character, how he’s playing a double agent, and how working with Matthew Vaughn on the Kingsman movies helped him prepare for the action.

In addition, in the last few weeks, Paramount Pictures announced they will finance and distribute the long-in-development Rocketman movie with Dexter Fletcher directing and Egerton in the role of Elton John. While many people have been reporting the film would be a biopic, Egerton told me it’s actually a fantasy musical. Here’s what he said:

“We are making a movie called Rocketman about Elton John’s formative years. Everyone thinks it’s a bio-pic. It isn’t. It’s a fantasy musical so it’s actually his songs used to express important beats in his life at emotional moments. He’s not the only character that sings. It’s going to be fun.”

I then asked when the movie will start shooting:

“I think they’re hoping for August but it’s unconfirmed. But it will be this year.”

On how he’s been preparing for it:

“I’ve recorded some songs. I’ve been doing singing lessons. The next step is I need to think about choreography and trying to create some semblance of a performance that is at least reminiscent of him.”

Finally, he revealed he wants to sing on set when they’re filming:

“I’m going to do it all. I’m going to do it on set as well. We’re going to use a variety of techniques but I will always be singing on set. No miming. I’m just not interested in doing it that way.”

While you’d think a musical about Elton John would be a no-brainer especially with how many iconic songs can be used in the film, I’m just happy it’s finally near the starting line.

Finally, if you never saw the movie Sing, trust me when I say Taron Egerton has got a killer singing voice and I think people are going to be blown away by what he does in the role. Check out the interview above and below is breakdown of exactly what we talked about.

Taron Egerton