Lenny Kravitz came ‘this” close to playing Marvin Gaye in a bio-pic.

Kravitz, who recently published his memoir Let Love Rule, tells Rolling Stone that he’d already done research for the role when plans unraveled.

Kravitz went to Oostend, the Belgian city where Marvin lived during his European exile. Immersing himself in the character. He says, “I stayed at Marvin’s apartment. I went to the gym where he was training for boxing, the church where he sang the Lord’s Prayer.”

Even though Lenny considered Marvin a hero, he had doubts about the project. “I just didn’t feel right about it… There were some business and financing things going on which had nothing to do with me. I just gracefully bowed out with due respect to the director [Julien Temple] who’s wonderful and I really like as a person. In the end, I’m glad that I didn’t do it. Playing Marvin Gaye is a wonderful opportunity but [long pause] I’m just trying to do my thing.”