Ahmed Best, the actor who played one of cinema’s most reviled characters, revealed in a new interview that Michael Jackson actually wanted to play Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.

Best sat down with Vice to discuss a new series he’s working on called 2 Black Dudes, which is actually executive produced by Seth MacFarlane. The actor did say last year that the King of Pop did want to play Jar Jar in a Reddit interview, but Vice had to see what the story was on that.

The actor insisted that it was not a joke. He explained to Vice that Lucas took him and Natalie Portman to a Jackson concert in London. After the show, Lucas introduced Best to Jackson as “Jar Jar,” which Best thought was weird.

“After Michael had driven off, we all go back up to a big afterparty,” Best recalled. “I'm having a drink with George and I said, ‘Why did you introduce me as Jar Jar?’ He said, ‘Well, Michael wanted to do the part but he wanted to do it in prosthetics and makeup like 'Thriller.’’”

Lucas instead wanted Jar Jar to be completely computer generated, which made Best one of the first actors in film history to be completely replaced by a computer generated character. Of course, that’s a common occurrence now, but The Phantom Menace came out a few years before Andy Serkis made his debut as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.

After it became clear that no one liked Jar Jar, Lucas cut down the character’s role in the following prequels. While Jar Jar has a speech in Attack of the Clones, you need a magnifying glass to see him in Revenge of the Sith.

Best talked at length about when he began realizing that no one liked the character. He didn’t realize that the character received such a negative reaction until they did the New York press junkets. It wasn’t so hard for a Bronx native like him to take, but it hurt to see Jake Lloyd, who was only 8 when he played Anakin Skywalker, get berated by the press.

“To be 100 percent honest, none us, as we were shooting this, had any idea that anything like this was going to happen,” Best told Vice. “At the end of the day, it is the movie business, and if the character doesn't work for the people who watch the movie then the character doesn't work. I can't take that personally.”

image courtesy of Scott Kirkland/INFphoto.com