Those Rumors Over Whether Or Not David Bowie Auditioned For ‘Lord Of The Rings’ FINALLY Have An Answer

The Internet is the wild west when it comes to rumors – some are true, some are false, and some are just so dumb that you can’t imagine someone sitting down and putting in the effort to come up with such an illogical waste of a thought. However, rumors about whether or not David Bowie was up for a part in the Lord of the Rings series have always been that – rumors…until today, that is.

In an interview with Huffington Post, Dominic Monaghan, the actor who played Meriadoc “merry” Brandybuck in the Lord of the Rings series…

…has revealed that yes indeed, David Bowie was up for a part, and not a small one at that either:

“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.”

Now, if the rumors circulating the Internet are true, Bowie was actually up for the part of Elrond rather than Gandalf. Not as big of a role, but still important. Supposedly Peter Jackson, the director for all three Lord of the Rings films, turned down Bowie because he was too famous, eventually giving the part to Hugo Weaving. Whether or not that’s true we’ve yet to hear – Jackson’s kept silent on the whole matter, but if there’s one thing we can agree on it’s that Lord of the Rings would’ve only been improved by Bowie, no matter how famous he is.

[H/T Huffington Post]