David Bowie's acting career, much like his music career, was anything but a straight line.
Beginning with the vaunted sci-fi drama The Man Who Fell To Earth, Bowie would star in everything from Christopher Nolan blockbusters such as The Prestige to much more restrained pieces like Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and The Last Temptation of Christ.
However, in his later years, Bowie opted for more mainstream roles, turning up as himself in Zoolander to judge a walk-off competition between Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson's characters. In fact, one film that Bowie auditioned for - but didn't get - was the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Back in the day, it was heavily rumoured that David Bowie would be taking on the role of Elrond, played in the film by Hugo Weaving. However, Dominic Monaghan - who played Merry - believes he was auditioning for some other role.
"As I was reading a magazine waiting, David Bowie came in and signed his little list and went in. And I’m assuming he read for Gandalf. I can’t think of anything else he would’ve read for. He may have read for something else, but I’m a huge David Bowie fan, so just seeing him in person was pretty special to me."
We'll never know for sure, obviously, however director Peter Jackson reportedly opted not to cast Bowie as he felt his appearance in the film would have been too distracting viewers. Pretty reasonable, we think, but Bowie as an elf-king sounds too perfect to us not to wonder how he'd have played it.
Via HuffPo
