Stockard Channing and Brian Cox are flawless choices to play Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando, but the unexpected casting of Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson has started a huge media storm. The trip’s existence was originally reported and later debunked by Vanity Fair in 2011, and now it will become a TV thanks to Sky Arts in the United Kingdom.
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Of course, getting a white British actor to play an African-American pop star is sure to push buttons, but also remember, that the Mexican Deigo Luna played MJ in Harmony Korine’s winning oddity “Mister Lonely”. Because the 9/11 attacks shut down air travel they reportedly rented a vehicle to road trip back to California.
Actor Joseph Fiennes from “Strangerland” poses for a portrait at the Village at the Lift Presented by McDonald’s McCafe during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2015 in Park City, Utah.
Many assumed the announcement must be a cruel joke, with The Root’s Yesha Callhan writing, “Why in the world is a white man playing Michael Jackson?”. The three embarked on the trip after Jackson invited Taylor and Brando to his 30th anniversary concert in Madison Square Garden just one day before the 9/11 attacks. “They actually got as far as OH – all three of them, in a vehicle they drove themselves”, claimed a former employee of Jackson.
Elizabeth, Michael, and Marlon won’t see Lindsay Lohan reprising her role as Taylor.
The incredible roadtrip offers weird details on which the film’s creators can draw – all the way down to Michael and Liz supposedly becoming annoyed with Brando for wanting to stop at nearly every Burger King along the way. He goes on to say it’s also “rather handsome and poignant about their relationships as well”.
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Joseph Fiennes will star as Michael Jackson in a TV drama set to broadcast later this year.
