David Bowie was first and foremost a musician but he was also an eccentric film star, best known for his role as the Goblin King in Jim Henson's cult classic Labyrinth. It's easy to imagine his otherworldliness in the Middle Earth world of Lord of the Rings, and today we learned that that actually could have been a possibility.
According to a Huffington Post interview with Dominic Monaghan (who played Merry), Bowie did actually audition to be in the LOTR movies. SAY WHAT? "As I was reading a magazine waiting, David Bowie came in and signed his little list and went in," Monaghan recalls seeing the late musician at the casting call. "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." But most rumors point to Bowie having auditioned for Elrond instead; his natural elfishness would have made that a better fit for him than the wise wizard role that Ian McKellan nailed.
Though Bowie would have also made an awesome Elrond, we all know the role ended up going to Hugo Weaving a.k.a. Agent Smith instead.
