Michael Jackson loved movies, and he wasn’t shy about picking up the phone when one really grabbed him.
After he saw Will Smith in “Men in Black,” Michael called the actor up. Will Smith has said Michael told him it was one of the most creative things he’d ever seen. Then Michael made a request. If they ever made a part two, he wanted in. It didn’t matter what character he played. He just wanted to be there.
So when the sequel got rolling, the filmmakers were happy to find him something. Director Barry Sonnenfeld had an idea ready to go.
And this is where it gets funny, because Michael said no to it.
Sonnenfeld later told Insider how it played out. “He approached us,” the director said. Then came the offer. “I was going to make him an alien,” Sonnenfeld recalled. But Michael had other plans. “He said, ‘No, I want to wear the ‘Men in Black’ suit.'”
Think about that. One of the most famous faces on the planet had the chance to vanish under alien makeup, go completely unrecognizable, and have some fun. Instead he wanted the sharp black suit and shades, same as the agents. He wanted to be one of them.
Sonnenfeld rolled with it. “So we figured out how to do that and it worked out,” he said. “He was lovely.”
The cameo made the final cut, and it’s a little gift for anyone watching closely.
Michael’s surprise cameo in the movie
“Men in Black II” opened on July 3, 2002, and became one of the big movies of that summer. Michael’s moment is short and sweet, the kind of thing you miss if you step out for popcorn. But once you’ve seen it, you never forget it.
The credits even spell out what he was after. Michael is listed as “Himself, asking to be made Agent M.” He didn’t want a quiet walk-on. He wanted to be written in as one of the agents, with a title of his own.
It says something about how much he loved the whole world Will Smith had helped build on screen. Plenty of stars do cameos to be seen. Michael did this one because he was a genuine fan who wanted to play dress-up with the big kids for an afternoon.
And the director got the better end of the deal. He came in planning to bury a legend under rubber and makeup. He walked away with a story he’d be telling for decades, about the day Michael Jackson asked to wear the suit.