How Jaafar Jackson Was Cast As Michael Jackson According to Director Antoine Fuqua

The casting of Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in the forthcoming biopic was, by director Antoine Fuqua's account on Rich's show, the result of a years-long preparation that began before he ever boarded the project, a chance video shown on a film set in Italy, and a string of moments so eerie they kept stopping rooms cold.

Fuqua told Rich that Jaafar had been training to play his uncle long before the director was attached. "Jafar was rehearsing to be Michael for two years about a year before I came on," Fuqua said, crediting producer Graham King with finding him. The first proof, oddly, came on the set of Equalizer 3. "Bob Richardson, the great DP, showed me a video of him and Michael on the set together. But it was modern," Fuqua said. He assumed it was archival footage of Michael Jackson himself. It was Jaafar.

"Could not tell the difference," Fuqua said.

That resemblance, Fuqua argued, was the easy part. The harder question was whether Jaafar could act, having never done so before. The director said his early read was that Jaafar was performing for him. "I thought he was acting, auditioning for me. He was so Michaelike. Just his way spoke and his behavior and his gentleness." A test screening followed. "Rich, when I tell you man, he walked out the room and it was Michael Jackson."

Fuqua decided to push further, throwing an unscripted question at Jaafar to see how he would handle it cold. "He answered the question as if he was Michael and he had the whole room with tears in their eyes," Fuqua said. "And I was like, he's the real deal." The first day of principal photography stress-tested everything: Jaafar's debut on camera was a recreation of the Bad tour in front of 500 extras. "And he blew everybody away," Fuqua said.

The casting story did not stop with Jaafar. Colman Domingo, cast as Joe Jackson, produced one of those moments directors talk about for years. Fuqua described turning a corner on stage during a separate shoot and seeing a man with his back to him, in hair and makeup. He thought it was a wig test. "The guy turned around, it was Coleman. I I shocked me," Fuqua said. Domingo stayed in character through the conversation. "He started talking to me as if he was Joe in our normal conversation about the day's work. It was so good."

Fuqua went straight to Graham King and rewrote the day. "I said, Graham, we should film Coleman today. It was not planned." The footage from that unplanned afternoon, Fuqua said, made the final cut, intercut with the brothers performing the final tour.