‘Michael’, the long-awaited biopic based on the life and career of legendary musician Michael Jackson, opens in theaters on April 24th.
Lft8D7heZ1vUsG1f3vG1E1The film, which was directed by Antoine Fuqua (‘The Equalizer’) and produced by Graham King (‘Bohemian Rhapsody’), stars Michael Jackson’s real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson as the King of Pop, as well as Colman Domingo (‘Sing Sing’) as Joe Jackson, Nia Long (‘Friday’) as Katherine Jackson, and Miles Teller (‘Top Gun: Maverick’) as Jackson’s manager John Banca.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Antoine Fuqua and producer Graham King about their work on ‘Michael’, developing the project, finding the right actor for the role, working with Jaafar Jackson, what moments from Michael’s life they wanted to focus on, which moments they wish they could have included or spent more time on, creating the costumes, and if Fuqua kept any mementos from the production.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews.
Related Article: Director Antoine Fuqua Talks ‘The Equalizer 3’
Moviefone: To begin with, Antoine, what was your first reaction to reading John Logan’s screenplay and why you personally wanted to tell Michael’s story on the big screen?
Antoine Fuqua: My first reaction was that it’s a solid screenplay about Michael Jackson. My second reaction was, “Who’s going to play Michael Jackson?” When I met with Graham, he introduced me to Jaafar, and the rest is history as far as that goes. But, yeah, it’s daunting when you read a Michael Jackson script by John Logan. It’s a great script and then we had to find Michael and Jaafar was no question the right choice.
MF: Graham, to that point, I understand that you discovered Jaafar and recommended him to Antoine. At what point did you realize he was the right choice?
Graham King: Over lunch. I had a lunch with Jaafar. I know the family well and I’ve known (his father) Jermaine since 1981. I met with Jaafar and during that lunch, I kept asking him if he was auditioning, because he was channeling Michael. It was very eerie and weird. He kept saying, “I don’t want to be an actor. I’ve got no interest in acting.” I kept saying, “Just be honest with me.” Because obviously I’ve produced a few movies, and you know what it is when you sit down with an actor who wants a job, and I kept thinking it’s reverse psychology. “No, I don’t want to act.” But he really didn’t. Two weeks after that lunch, I said, “If you’re up for it, let’s go through some training and bootcamp.” Kind of like what I put Rami Malek through to play Freddie Mercury, but at a much different level. In fact, the first time he spent a month with Rich + Tone, who were Michael’s choreographers, and they said, “We’re not sure. We’re not confident that he can get these dance moves down.” He called me that night and he said, “Give me some time and then come and see. I’ll show you what I’ve got.” I think it was about a month later, we both went to Hayvenhurst, to the house that he was staying in, which is Michael’s house in Encino. He just blew us away with his dance moves. I mean, he got it down. The only thing he asked for in that month was, he kept saying, “I want mirrors. Just get me long, tall mirrors and let me do my thing.” I mean, look at that performance now. It’s incredible.
MF: Antoine, can you talk about the first time you did a screen test with Jaafar? Was that when you realized you found your Michael?
AF: Yeah, it was. We did a screen test with Jaafar, and he came out as Michael. It was my first time seeing him in person as Michael, and I was kind of blown away just on his whole presence. That got me right away. Then we put him in front of the camera and started filming him doing different things. He would sing a little bit and dance a little bit. Then me and Graham were sitting there, and we asked Jaafar a question. I can’t remember what it was, but he answered it as if he was Michael and tears started flowing around the room. Our cinematographer was crying. I looked back, he had tears in his eyes. We were all trying to hide it, but he really answered in such an honest, pure way. He’s never acted in his life. I just thought, “This guy’s special.” That was the moment for me. It was just off the cuff. He didn’t know it was coming. I wanted to see if he was in the moment. Was he just here in makeup or was he in the moment? I threw something at him, and he just paused, and he thought about it, and he answered. It was just so beautiful, elegant, honest, and pure. I was like, “This Jaafar is special.”
MF: Graham, why did you want to focus on this specific time in Michael’s life, and how do you think your experience producing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ prepared you to make this movie?
GK: I guess I’ve made a career out of taking these iconic artists or people like Muhammad Ali, Howard Hughes, and Freddie Mercury, obviously, and showing the world a side that they’ve never seen before and humanizing them, these iconic people. I think it’s such a challenge to find that three act structure to make it an entertaining film and not a documentary. You kind of have fun with it. I have fun with it. Of course, there is also the music side, having the rights to Queen’s catalog and now Michael’s catalog, and really digging into the songs we’re going to use and the time periods of the movie. I was at Dodger Stadium in 1984 at the ‘Victory Tour’ when Michael quit. It was the most amazing organic third act drama and conflict moment you could ask for. You couldn’t ask for it any better. A writer couldn’t write it any better than that. I remember talking to Michael’s brothers about it, “Did you know that he was going to do this?” They were like, “No, we had no idea, and we kind of thought he was playing at the time. We didn’t know he was serious.” So that was sitting with John Logan and Antoine and saying, “Let’s head for that moment and make that the pinnacle point of the storytelling and put Joe at the side of the stage,” because he’s going to tell Joe, and he does it in front of 50,000 people at Dodger Stadium.
MF: Antoine, can you talk about recreating iconic moments in Michael’s life like the making of the ‘Thriller’ video and his performance at the Motown 25th Anniversary show and was there any one moment that you wish you had more time to explore?
AF: I mean, everything. Right? Because being a director, you never have enough time. But it’s the quiet moments you got to get just right. It’s really the quiet moments. The bigger moments we know, the performances, and we knew what we needed to do. It was the more quiet, intimate moments that you hope you capture the spirit of Michael in each moment. What’s interesting with Jaafar is that we would try different things to find the right tone, and the right frequency. Again, Jaafar’s never acted before, but he was so good that I would forget. We’d go to Jaafar, try something, and he would nail it. Then we would realize, “This guy has never acted before in his life, and we’re throwing these things at him.” He would come through with flying colors every single time. I don’t remember him missing too many beats at all. But making the bigger moments was magical. Because of the authenticity of the film, it lives in all the real places like Hayvenhurst, we had where he recorded ‘Off the Wall’, where he shot the ‘Thriller’ video, and the Pasadena Civic Auditorium where Motown 25 took place, all real places. You get chills whenever you go to those kinds of places and remember those moments. The idea that we had the opportunity to recreate it and do that was a little of an out of body experience at times. It’s a big responsibility to get it just right. So, Graham and I, we really would study what it was and look at what we’re doing and compare it. Because we knew Michael’s audience, they’re going to do that, every little move. So, it was daunting, but exciting and magical. When we shot the ‘Thriller’ video, we had a full moon every night, which was amazing. I’ve never seen a crew more excited about a scene. When I got dropped off on the set, the grips and everybody had on wolf masks, and they were dancing around to ‘Thriller’. It was like this big event. It was like a movie within itself. So, that to me was a special day.
MF: Graham, is there any moment from Michael’s life during this period that you wanted to put in the film but just couldn’t because of time?
GK: Certainly, the ‘Dancing Machine’ era, when Michael was, I think, 16 or 17, around that era. We thought about putting that in. But when you’re making a film, you’ve got to have a certain running time and you can’t tell every story you want to tell, so you’ve got to make sacrifices. That cut from young Michael at the county fair to Michael at the window with Quincy Jones, I think that time cut worked well for our story as opposed to stopping in different times like the ‘Dancing Machine’ era.
MF: Finally, Antoine, can you talk about working with your costume designer Marci Rodgers to recreate all of Michael’s famous outfits for the film, and did you keep a sequenced glove for yourself as a memento?
AF: I got the producer sitting here, I’m not going to tell. No, I didn’t keep anything. I wish I could. I mean, Marci did a great job, but we had a great crew and a great team. They really did their homework, and she did her homework. She would design these jackets, like when he’s holding the Grammys, and the jacket was about 15 pounds. It had all the jewels and everything. I thought, “Did it have to feel this heavy for Jaafar?” It was authentic though. Those were the real Grammys. Those were Michael’s Grammys he’s holding. I mean, the whole crew, they really cared so much about getting it right, every little detail.
What is the plot of ‘Michael’?
Discover the story of Michael Jackson (Jaafar Jackson), one of the most influential artists the world has ever known, and his life beyond the music, tracing his journey from the discovery of his extraordinary talent as the lead of the Jackson Five, to the visionary artist whose creative ambition fueled a relentless pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world, highlighting both his life off-stage and some of the most iconic performances from his early solo career.
Who is in the cast of ‘Michael’?
- Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson
- Juliano Krue Valdi as young Michael
- Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson
- Nia Long as Katherine Jackson
- Miles Teller as John Branca
- Laura Harrier as Suzanne de Passe
- KeiLyn Durrel Jones as Bill Bray
- Jamal R. Henderson as Jermaine Jackson
- Jayden Harville as young Jermaine
- Tre Horton as Marlon Jackson
- Jaylen Lyndon Hunter as young Marlon
- Rhyan Hill as Tito Jackson
- Judah Edwards as young Tito
- Joseph David-Jones as Jackie Jackson
- Nathaniel Logan McIntyre as young Jackie
- Jessica Sula as La Toya Jackson
- Kendrick Sampson as Quincy Jones
- Larenz Tate as Berry Gordy
- Liv Symone as Gladys Knight
- Kevin Shinick as Dick Clark
List of Musician Biopics:
- ‘Sid and Nancy‘ (1986)
- ‘The Doors‘ (1991)
- ‘Ray‘ (2004)
- ‘Walk the Line‘ (2005)
- ‘I’m Not There‘ (2007)
- ‘Control‘ (2007)
- ‘Nowhere Boy‘ (2010)
- ‘The Runaways‘ (2010)
- ‘Get on Up‘ (2014)
- ‘Love & Mercy‘ (2015)
- ‘Straight Outta Compton‘ (2015)
- ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ (2018)
- ‘Rocketman‘ (2019)
- ‘The Dirt‘ (2019)
- ‘Elvis‘ (2022)
- ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody‘ (2022)
- ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story‘ (2022)
- ‘Maestro‘ (2023)
- ‘Bob Marley: One Love‘ (2024)
- ‘Back to Black‘ (2024)
- ‘Girl You Know It’s True‘ (2024)
- ‘A Complete Unknown’ (2024)
- ‘Better Man’ (2025)
- ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere‘ (2025)
- ‘Michael‘ (2026)
Buy Tickets: ‘Michael’ Movie Showtimes
Buy Michael Jackson Music on Amazon
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