Finding someone to play Michael Jackson was never going to be easy. The man moved and sang like no one before him or since. So when the makers of the new movie “Michael” went looking for their star, they knew the odds were against them.
The person they chose was Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s own nephew. And here’s the part that worried everyone. Jaafar had never acted in anything.
Producer Graham King looked at more than 200 people before he kept coming back to one name. What pulled him back were clips of Jaafar singing on YouTube. But singing isn’t acting, and nobody knew yet if the young man could carry a whole movie on his shoulders.
Director Antoine Fuqua felt that same doubt. “I still didn’t know whether he could act, because he had never done it before,” he said. So they set up a screen test and waited to see what would happen.
This past weekend Fuqua told the story in front of a full house. On Saturday, Oct 17, 2026, the cast and crew of “Michael” held an awards-season screening and a question-and-answer night at the DGA Theatre in Los Angeles. Every seat was taken. When Jaafar walked out, the whole room rose for a standing ovation.
Fuqua shares the screen-test moment on camera in the clip below. Watch his face while he tells it.
Antoine Fuqua describing how Jaafar landed the role
He first told this story back in April, and the way he describes those few minutes is something you really have to hear. The word he reaches for isn’t “good” or “talented.” It’s a word you would never expect a director to use about someone who had never acted before.
There’s a second clip from Saturday night too. In it Jaafar himself talks about what the whole experience felt like from the inside.
Jaafar at the Oct 17 event, on what it felt like
Back in April Fuqua filled in even more. He said the moment felt almost spiritual. He said Jaafar answered a question as if he were Michael. And he said his cinematographer, Dion Beebe, had tears in his eyes, and so did half the crew.
So what happened the second Jaafar began? Fuqua sums it up in one short phrase, and that phrase is exactly why this nephew got the part. Hear him say it in his own words above.