"I'm a white, middle-class guy from London - I'm as shocked [at getting cast to play Michael Jackson] as you might be."

Said Joseph Fiennes.

"It's a light comedy look. It's not in any way malicious. It's actually endearing. And the more I actually looked at Michael - it's great, as an actor, to have so much to copy and look at in interviews - the more I kind of fell in love with him....

"Michael and two of his best buddies, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando, happened to be in New York the night before 9/11. It was a concert Michael was giving, and Brando was introducing him on stage. I don't know if this is an urban legend or if it's true, but the three of them couldn't get out because air space was shut down, so the three of them jumped in a car and went on a road trip."

Here's the 2011 Vanity Fair article by Sam Kashner, about the real-life road trip and I'm going to get off the interstate that is the topic of the outrage of casting a white actor to play a black person when there aren't enough roles for black actors (and whether any black actors look as much like Michael Jackson as Joseph Fiennes does, if he does) and I'm taking the off-ramp that is the actual story of the road trip: