David Bowie Wasn't The Only Pop Star Considered For Jareth

"I had just been at university for the one year that I went to college, and I can tell you that I was going from nightclub to nightclub, and Michael Jackson and David Bowie were the two biggest names in my generation, for sure," Brian Henson recalled. And Jim Henson's college-age son might have been the one who convinced the filmmaker that David Bowie was his Jareth. "So when he asked me, I was leaning in favor of David Bowie. I just felt like Bowie had a quirkiness and yet a really coolness that would work really well for my dad, whereas [Michael Jackson] had a perfection to his work that would have been tough."

In case you couldn't tell, Brian Henson himself grew up to be a filmmaker, which is probably why he's got such an involved analysis of the nuances in casting David Bowie compared to casting Michael Jackson in his father's film. He continued: "[Jackson] would have had to compromise his perfection, and then maybe that's no longer Michael, whereas David was always unpredictable."

The rest is goblin history, as Bowie helped to create one of the most unforgettable villains in all of '80s cinema. We can't know whether Sting or Michael Jackson (who also campaigned for the role of Jar-Jar Binks in "The Phantom Menace") would have been able to do the same, but it seems clear that at least in Brian Henson's opinion, they wouldn't have been able to match the evil charisma of Bowie's Jareth.