Add a location to your Tweets 
 
 When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| @ TheMJCast it angers me to see how obviously intentional it was for them to be this insulting, not just towards my father, but my godmother liz as well ||||| @ TheMJCast i'm so incredibly offended by it, as i'm sure plenty of people are as well, and it honestly makes me want to vomit. ||||| British actor explains his decision to play the pop star in an upcoming Sky TV comedy – a casting that has led to a row over race 
 
 Joseph Fiennes has defended his decision to play Michael Jackson in an upcoming comedy, despite a furore over the casting of a white British actor in the role of a black American superstar. 
 
 Fiennes told AFPTV on Thursday that he was “shocked” at being chosen for the role, but insisted he had no qualms about taking on “a wonderful role” in what was “just a satire”. 
 
 Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson shows race problems before Oscars row Read more 
 
 Fiennes plays Jackson in the upcoming Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon, a short and surreal comedy produced by British pay-TV channel Sky Arts, which imagines Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando taking a road trip together in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York. 
 
 “Sky Arts, who are dedicated to half-hour comedies, this year have commissioned a series of comedies, one of which surrounds the road-trip of Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando,” Fiennes told AFPTV in Rome. 
 
 “I was shocked that they would come to me for the casting. You have to ask them as to why they would want to cast me.” 
 
 The decision to give Fiennes the role has triggered suggestions that mainstream media have learned nothing from the row over the lack of black candidates for the major Oscar acting awards this year, for the second straight year. 
 
 But he suggested critics getting worked up about his casting were overplaying the importance of the piece. 
 
 “I felt this was a wonderful challenge, I read the script and it’s very funny. 
 
 “It’s a satire, it’s just a 20-minute satire. It’s a sketch about a story that could have been a legend or could have been true. So we’ll see what the audience make of it.” 
 
 Fiennes was in Rome to promote his latest film, Risen, in which he plays a Roman officer investigating the disappearance of Jesus Christ’s body after his crucifixion – the point at which Christian tradition maintains he was resurrected. 
 
 The film has been given the blessing of the Vatican, and Fiennes and his wife María Dolores Diéguez met Pope Francis on Wednesday. 
 
 The actor said he was a fan of the Argentinian pontiff and his efforts to modernise the Church. 
 
 “I like what he represents,” he said. “I feel it’s something tangible to me in the modern age. He’s a man who carries his own suitcase. He’s a man that doesn’t want the pomp and the ceremony. He’s stripping it down. 
 
 “I don’t know if that’s his Jesuit roots, but I like that he’s challenging, especially in today’s world. I think it’s wonderful that he represents an authenticity that speaks to the people. So he’s an important man, he’s deeply connected in a spiritual way.” 
 
 Fiennes, best known for playing England’s most famous playwright in 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love, admitted that experiencing Francis’s charisma at close hand had been an emotional experience. 
 
 “I tried to maintain a face that was calm and cool but I blubbered like a baby,” he said. 
 
 “I don’t know what it is, he’s authentic!” ||||| Important Announcement 
 
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 Michael Jackson may have been adamant about not wanting a white person to portray him, but Joseph Fiennes, a white actor who will play the black music icon in a 9/11 road-trip comedy airing on British TV, says his whitewashed depiction of the King of Pop is a case of artistic license. Fiennes tells the AP, “I deal in imagination, so I don’t think imagination should have rules stamped on them” — and insists the “colorblind” casting wasn’t meant to be offensive: “If it promotes stereotyping, then it’s wrong. I made a distinction that the Jackson project doesn’t do that.” 
 
 Still, even Fiennes admits that he “wouldn’t be the guy for the job” if the project were anything more than a 20-minute “sweet comedy” sketch. (The project also stars Stockard Channing as Liz Taylor and Brian Cox as Marlon Brando.) “This is territory that is sensitive,” he says. “One must determine if this portrayal is one that is going to be positive entertainment, and one that will not bring about division and put anyone’s noses out of joint, so I went with the mind that this was a positive, lighthearted comedy.” He likens his role to a black actress he once saw play Marilyn Monroe at the National Theatre, and decries the “lack of imagination” that kept some critics from accepting the race-bent casting. ||||| Add a location to your Tweets 
 
 When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| @ TheMJCast where is the respect? they worked through blood sweat and tears for ages to create such profound and remarkable legacies. shameful portrayal
– In case you were wondering how Paris Jackson feels about a white British guy playing her father, well ... she is not a fan. Michael Jackson podcast The MJCast, which had previously called for a boycott of Joseph Fiennes-starring Urban Myths, tweeted at Paris Wednesday asking for her thoughts. She didn't hold back, replying that Fiennes' casting as her dad makes her "want to vomit." She added that she's similarly upset with how her godmother, Elizabeth Taylor, is portrayed in the TV special, and that she finds both portrayals "shameful." Sky Arts, which is running Urban Myths, responded with a statement to Mashable noting that the series is meant to be "a light hearted look at unlikely stories involving a range of cultural and historical figures" and that "Sky Arts puts the integrity of the creative vision at the heart of all of its original commissions and casting decisions are made within the overall diversity framework which we have set." Fiennes himself has defended his role in the show, calling it "just a satire" and insisting it's "colorblind" and doesn't "[promote] stereotyping." See Fiennes as Michael here.