Joseph Fiennes admits that playing Michael Jackson was a mistake
Joseph Fiennes now says agreeing to play Michael Jackson in a never-aired episode of 2017's Urban Myths was a "bad call"
We’re probably several dozen casting-related racial controversies past the bizarre decision to have Joseph Fiennes star as Michael Jackson in Urban Myths, the 2017 anthology series from Sky Arts. The episode, which also starred Brian Cox as Marlon Brando and Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor, was pulled before it ever aired (“in light of the concerns expressed by Michael Jackson’s immediate family”), but production photos of Fiennes with white makeup caked on his face live forever.
“I think people are absolutely right to be upset,” Fiennes says in a new interview with The Observer, which notes that he is “possibly the only time an actor could be accused of both blackface and whiteface at the same time.” Fiennes admits it was the “wrong decision,” but also notes that he’s just “one part of that—there are producers, broadcasters, writers, directors, all involved in these decisions.”