In partnership with Universal Pictures UK
When Jaafar Jackson landed the lead in Michael, the long-awaited biopic of his iconic uncle, he received the ultimate endorsement. His grandmother Katherine, Michael’s mother and the matriarch of pop’s first family, said with simple approval: “Jaafar embodies my son.” Given that Michael began his career in the family band, The Jackson 5, there was a pleasing symmetry in seeing his legacy continued by his own nephew. Jaafar, who grew up at Hayvenhurst, the Jacksons’ California compound, is the son of Michael’s older brother and bandmate Jermaine.
However, this doesn’t mean that Jaafar was a shoo-in to portray the King Of Pop – far from it. Though he was already an accomplished singer – no surprise given his Jackson DNA – he had never acted before and had no formal dance training. In fact, his only previous screen credit was an episode of The Jacksons: Next Generation, a 2015 reality series following the lives of Taj, Taryll and TJ Jackson, his cousins who perform as 3T. “When I first heard about the movie, my thought definitely wasn’t ‘I’m going to play Michael,'” Jaafar says. “I’d never even dreamed of being an actor. My first thought was: ‘I wonder who will play Michael?'”
Jaafar actually grew up wanting to be a golfer, before music piqued his interest like many a Jackson before him. In 2019, he released his debut single, ‘Got Me Singing’, a percolating alt-R&B bop that he co-wrote. A year later, he dropped another single, ‘Confused’, a late-night lament with echoes of The Weeknd and his uncle Michael’s vibey ’90s output. Having previously covered classics by Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye, Jaafar’s vocal chops were undeniable.
Still, Jaafar was almost painfully honest when he was contacted by Graham King, the Oscar-winning producer of Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, who was now working on a similarly ambitious film about Michael Jackson. “He wanted to have a Zoom, and I could tell just what this was going to lead to in some way,” Jaafar recalled during his recent appearance on The Tonight Show. “And then one thing led to the other. We had lunch, and he’s kind of looking at me [and] he asked, ‘Have you ever acted before?’ I said, ‘Never – I never wanted to be an actor.'”
By this point, King and casting director Kimberly Hardin had already conducted a worldwide search for an actor who could play Michael Jackson, one of music’s most distinctive and familiar performers. Despite his relative lack of experience, Jaafar stood out from the pack. “It wasn’t about what he was saying or even his look. It was just a feeling of rightness that was so strong I couldn’t ignore it,” King says. “I felt something a bit like it when Rami Malek walked into my office and said, ‘I’d love to play Freddie Mercury.’ But this took it to a whole new level. There was something so spiritual about Jaafar that just talking with him about Michael got me emotional. We looked at nearly 200 actors around the globe, and no one could beat Jaafar.”
The film’s director, Antoine Fuqua, whose previous credits include the Denzel Washington classics Training Day and The Equalizer, was also convinced they had found their M.J. “When I first met him, I thought Jaafar had to be acting because he came across exactly like Michael with that gentle soul. Then I realised this is truly who he is,” Fuqua says. An early screen test proved even more persuasive, not least because hair and makeup transformed Jaafar into the spit of his late uncle. “When we asked him questions in character, his answers were so beautifully poetic in that same way of Michael that [we] all had tears in our eyes,” Fuqua recalls.
In a way, it wasn’t too surprising that Jaafar was able to capture a sense of his uncle on screen. Growing up, he spent plenty of family time with his uncle at Hayvenhurst and the singer’s vast Neverland ranch. He was also acutely aware of Michael’s seismic impact on pop culture. “As a kid, I was obsessed with him,” Jaafar says. “I would sit in front of the TV in the same living room where Michael once sat, watching his tours and videos, just studying him. I couldn’t really understand then what it really was, but I knew I wanted to be immersed in this awe-inspiring energy.”
However, none of this led to Jaafar being cast on the spot. As he recalled on The Tonight Show, his audition turned out to be a “multi-year process” involving acting lessons and rigorous dance training that taught him to moonwalk like his uncle. “It was a process that I really had to earn. And it really proved to the filmmakers and myself and my family that I can get to that point where I can pull it off,” Jaafar said. He had won the role of a lifetime, but at this point, the hard work was really about to begin.