Taron Egerton refused to pretend he had a “miserable” time making Rocketman to help bolster his awards campaign.

The Kingsman: The Secret Service star won rave reviews for his portrayal of Elton John in the 2019 biopic and ended up winning a Golden Globe and receiving a BAFTA nomination.

During an appearance on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, Taron revealed that he was advised to pretend Rocketman was a “turbulent” experience to help his campaign during awards season.

“When we did the awards campaign, someone who shall remain nameless said to me, ‘You got to stop saying you had a great time, you’ve make it sound like you were ploughing your soul. Come on, you’ve got to sell it as being a dark, turbulent journey where it nearly cost you your sanity and you couldn’t leave the character behind for a year.’ I just can’t do that, I can’t do it, I just think it’s nonsense,” the 33-year-old shared.

The Tetris star insisted that he had “a great time” making the musical and it didn’t feel right to pretend otherwise.

“It was a joyous, creative episode of my life and I went home at the end of every day on Rocketman feeling great because it was hard, hard work but it was good work,” he gushed. “I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and there was nowhere else in the world I was supposed to be and that’s a really b**ody good feeling. And I wasn’t going to then go out and pretend to everyone that I had a really miserable time and it nearly drove me insane.”

Taron then joked that maybe his awards season would have been “a different story” if he followed that advice.

– Cover Media