Actor Ahmed Best tells Vice that Michael Jackson wanted to play Jar Jar Binks in 1999's Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, before Best himself landed the part. The reason why is simple: Director George Lucas wanted to use motion capture technology, while Jackson didn't.

"[Lucas] said, 'Well, Michael wanted to do the part but he wanted to do it in prosthetics and makeup like 'Thriller.' George wanted to do it in CGI," Best says. "My guess is ultimately Michael Jackson would have been bigger than the movie, and I don't think he wanted that."

Best was one of the first actors to use motion capture technology. However, that distinction got overlooked in the wave of criticism on Jar Jar himself, with a Wall Street Journal critic calling the Gungan a "Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit."

"It's a very American thing to take somebody down when they're at the top and a lot if it had to with that; people really wanted to see George crash and burn," Best says. "Unfortunately, this character was so new, so experimental; he became a lightning rod for all that."

Best first mentioned Jackson wanting to play Jar Jar last year in a Reddit AMA, to which one user says, "I have to ask.....are you joking about Michael Jackson, or are you being serious?"