It’s been months since the premiere of Michael, but an awards-season screening of the Lionsgate blockbuster was standing room only at the Directors Guild on Saturday, punctuated with bouts of applause and a standing ovation for its star, Jaafar Jackson. Director Antoine Fuqua was also on hand, along with Nia Long (Katherine Jackson), Colman Domingo (Joseph Jackson), and Giuliano Valdi (young Michael).
Executive producer Graham King said he’d looked at more than 200 people in his casting search for his leading man, but he’d circled back to Jaafar after seeing clips of him singing on YouTube. “Jaafar and I met over lunch, and I kept asking him if he was auditioning, because you could feel Michael’s spirit coming through him,” said King. “He said, ‘No, I don’t want to be an actor. I’m not an actor. That’s not what I want to do.'”
Jaafar eventually conceded that he wanted to act, and King’s strong feeling proved accurate the moment filming started. “To see Jaafar walk onto a film set for the very first time — walk into hair and makeup, come out, get on that soundstage and do the ‘Bad’ performance — was unbelievable,” said King.
That was Jaafar’s first day on set. “You prepare for a long time, and the amount of time you actually have to put all that work on film is very small compared with the preparation,” said Jaafar. “I had so much built-up energy that I kept saying to myself, ‘I can’t wait to put this on camera. I can’t wait to finally show Antoine, Graham, and the crew my performance.’ It felt as if everything had been kept private for so long. Only Rich and Tone, the choreographers, had been able to be in the room with me during rehearsals. Finally getting to let go and perform in front of the crew and the cameras was an experience of a lifetime.”
King admitted that the choreographers had called him after about a month of rehearsals and said, “We’re not sure we can get him there.” “I was disappointed, but I met with Jaafar, and he said, ‘Give me some time,'” recounted King. Then one night, Jaafar called and invited him over to watch him perform. “He had transformed himself on his own,” said King. “It was incredible.”
Fuqua said Jaafar had a “Michael spirit.” “I still didn’t know whether he could act, because he had never done it before,” he said. “Graham put together some screen tests, and Jaafar walked out — and it was Michael. It was eerie. The whole crew stopped what they were doing. … It was Michael. It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.”
Long wanted to be part of the film because she saw it as “a celebration of his music, but also as a celebration of humanity and of the way his music brought so many people together,” she said. “What I love about Katherine is her grace — her quiet grace and mature love that puts everyone else first. She’s selfless, visionary, and devoted to her husband. They came into this together and were committed to excellence. At that time, it was hard for Black people to be excellent, but by any means necessary, they found a way.”
Domingo said coming into the film, he knew the broad strokes that everyone knows — “the noisy, controversial aspects that don’t necessarily make up the whole man,” he said. But as he did his research, “I saw a blue-collar father who had a lot of children, many of them with extraordinary talent, and who wanted to give them the best of himself,” he said. “The world has villainized Joe Jackson again and again, but there would be no Michael Jackson and no Jackson family legacy without Katherine and Joe. They put their hearts, souls, love, and commitment into their family.”
Added Domingo, “Joe wasn’t simply a villain. He was a man who believed in his family and was trying to protect it in the only ways he knew.”
The film was also shot on location at the Jackson family home at Hayvenhurst in Encino, as well as the same L.A. streets where Michael filmed “Thriller.” “I come from the Martin Scorsese school of filmmaking, so I always try to be as authentic as possible,” said King. “When we got permission to use Hayvenhurst, it was amazing. There were parts of the movie where we never got the locations we wanted, but being in that house was extraordinary. The scene between Joe and Katherine in their bedroom, with the giraffe by the window, had a special energy. To be in that house every day and have the right to use it helped everyone.”
Recreating the Motown performance at the Pasadena Civic Center “was a little daunting,” admitted Jaafar, “but being in those locations helped me feel the energy of the room. … That challenged me in many ways, but I loved being able to tell myself, ‘I’ll be better tomorrow. I’ll be better the next day.’ I kept working and could see the progression.”
And as for the “Thriller” shoot, he said, “I still wish I had had a little more time with that choreography, but I had so much fun seeing the zombies. … Some of the original makeup artists even came to the set. It was a truly memorable evening.”
