From Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth to Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, David Bowie has quite often exceeded expectations when it comes to his acting talent. True, he was mostly given roles that many did not believe he was capable of performing, but he would always triumph in the end... need a better proof than the movie "Elephant Man"?.
As such, Bowie was once offered a role in the franchise of one of the biggest British institutions, a James Bond film. The singer got the chance to take on the role of the villain Max Zorin in "A View to a Kill". The film was released in 1985, and most of the filming took place in the summer of '84. in the year in which Bowie had no commitments on tour, his album "Tonight" was already recorded in May, so the singer decided to accept the offer. Ultimately, Bowie changed his mind, joking in his characteristic way that he "didn't want to spend five months watching his stunt double fall off a cliff".
The role of Bond villain Max Zorin was also offered to Sting, as director John Glenn and marketing agents wanted to hire a musician. In the end, they partially fulfilled their wish by hiring Grace Jones, in the role of MayDay, Zorin's lover and henchman. It turned out to be an extraordinary choice.
The famous singer and the actor who portrayed Bond at the time, Roger Moore, also had quite an interesting past together. Namely, a few years earlier, while Bowie was struggling to escape from the clutches of drugs and British taxes, he found himself in Switzerland, in a place not far from Geneva, without anyone anywhere. Suddenly, Roger Moore knocked on his door and the two had a great time together with lots of jokes and lots of alcohol. And that was great. However, Moore began to appear day after day, always at the same time, with the same anecdotes and stories, and Bowie was fed up. So he hid under the kitchen table, trying to avoid the gentleman playing Bond.
Christopher Walken was finally chosen for the role of Zorin, and a kind of homage to Bowie is his appearance, like Bowie's in "Let's Dance".
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