Jaafar Jackson is Michael Jackson’s nephew. He grew up inside one of the most famous families in music, and still he’d never acted a single day in his life. Then he got cast as his uncle in “Michael,” the big new movie about the King of Pop. It went on to become the first biopic ever to pass $1 billion around the world.
So how does a young man with no acting background land a role that size?
Jaafar says it started with the voice. In a new interview with Variety on October 19, he explained that getting Michael’s voice right came before everything else, even before the famous moves. And he traces the whole thing back to one small thing he did that nobody asked him to do.
He sent the producer a voice note.
The producer is Graham King, the Oscar-winning name behind the Freddie Mercury movie “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Jaafar texted him a recording, out of the blue, of himself speaking as Michael. He wasn’t singing, just talking in that soft gentle voice everyone knows.
Here’s how Jaafar put it to Variety:
“The voice came first. The movement was harder. I believe the voice was the first thing that convinced Graham because I sent him a voice note out of nowhere, over text, of me speaking as Michael. He called me and said, ‘Getting you a coach tomorrow.’ That was the turning point.”
Four words on a phone call. “Getting you a coach tomorrow.” One message Jaafar sent on his own turned into King picking up the phone and setting a plan for the very next day.
And the real work was only starting. A coach named Angela Gibbs came on board, acting classes began, and Jaafar buried himself in books by well-known acting teachers. He calls it total immersion.
“It was a full immersion, a process that took about two years until I actually knew I had the role,” he said.
Two years. All of it kicked off by a recording he didn’t have to make.
We don’t know exactly what Jaafar said on that voice note. He hasn’t shared it, so there’s no point guessing. What we do know is how King answered, and that’s the part fans keep circling back to. A man who had never acted won over a major Hollywood producer with his voice alone, before a single camera ever rolled.
Jaafar sat down with Variety to talk about finding his uncle’s voice and growing up a Jackson.
The full Variety interview with Jaafar Jackson
It’s rare to hear someone describe landing the role of a lifetime and point back to something so small. One voice note. One short reply. He still sounds a little amazed by it when he talks it through.