'Project of a lifetime': Canadian nominated for Bohemian Rhapsody sound Oscar

Canadian sound engineer Paul Massey says he’s “totally thrilled” and “ecstatic” to be nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 2018 film “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“This is a project of a lifetime for me, so to be recognized as well is just icing on the cake,” he told CTV News Channel from Los Angeles on Friday.

“My background while I was in Toronto and in later years was in music engineering and music mixing, and so for me now to be able to bring that experience of music mixing into the film world on such an iconic film, I mean, gosh… it’s just so exciting for me.”

Massey, along with Tim Cavagin and John Casali, has been nominated for best sound mixing for the film, which is a biopic of legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

The 2019 Oscar nomination is one of five for the movie and Massey’s eighth nomination since 1994. Massey, who has also worked on films such as “The Greatest Showman,” “Deadpool,” and “The Martian,” has yet to bring home an Academy Award.

While working on the film at a London studio, Massey even got to meet Queen co-founder and lead guitarist Brian May, whom he describes as “very cordial” and “very nice.”

“I was really, really nervous (the) first time,” Massey recalled. “I played him my first presentation of the first song and he went, ‘Hmm.’ And then I went, ‘Uh-oh.’ And he went, ‘Hmm.’ And I went, ‘Oh no, I’m fired!’ And fortunately it was nothing to do with the music -- he had a question about something else. So I managed to laugh it off later that day.”

Massey is also not all surprised with how well the film has been doing.

“I was hoping it would obviously be this large,” he said. “But like Brian May said to me, that when they used to release the albums, they… didn’t do very well critically. And then of course the audiences came to embrace them. And it’s kind of been the same thing for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ the film, and Brian acknowledged that and he had a big grin on his face when he told me that.”

The 91st Academy Awards ceremony will be held on Feb. 24.

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