In addition to being Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke and Labyrinth's Goblin King, David Bowie almost took on another persona: Gandalf the Grey.
That's according to Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry the Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
During his press tour for the new season of Wild Things, his BBC America nature series, he started talking Tolkien with The Huffington Post.
"I was at the Hubbard's, which is a pretty notorious casting agency office in London, doing an audition for Lord of the Rings, and when it ended I went over and talked to John Hubbard, who was running the audition, and he said, 'Hey, it went really well. You should wait around for 5 or 10 mins. We'll give you some feedback," He continued, "I thought, 'Oh, OK, cool, and I sat in the reception office. 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, and I was lucky enough to know his son now so just seeing him in person was pretty special to me."
His other possible casting theory?
Bowie was after the role of Elrond, which eventually went to Hugo Weaving.
We can't imagine anyone else but Ian McKellen in the flowing beard and robes — or Weaving in the pointy ears and braids — but still, it's a great story. (And if Bowie had shouted "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" at us, we would have still frozen in our tracks.)
And as a bonus, Monaghan hinted at a LOTR reunion on Wild Things:
"I've been chatting to Elijah [Wood] and Viggo [Mortensen] recently about whether they'd come with me for an episode for Season 4. I'm still very close with all those guys, Orlando [Bloom] and Sean Bean. Elijah and Viggo jump out for me a little more just because I've had more history with those guys, and they seem more inclined to get their hands dirty."
Thanks, Dominic!
(P.S. As Losties, we could also go for a Charlie/Desmond reunion. Just putting that one out there.)