Jaafar Jackson says two years of full-time preparation and an unsolicited voice note helped him carry the Michael Jackson biopic past $1 billion, and he is ready if Lionsgate greenlights a sequel.
The 30-year-old nephew of Michael Jackson had never acted professionally before Antoine Fuqua’s Michael. He still wrote down a private goal list two years before a single frame was shot: beat the box-office mark set by Bohemian Rhapsody and cross $1 billion worldwide.
The film opened April 24, became Lionsgate’s biggest release ever, and became the first biopic in history to surpass $1 billion worldwide. Jackson told Variety he was home when the milestone landed and spoke separately with Fuqua and producer Graham King about what it meant.
“I was pretty emotional,” Jackson said. “I know how proud Michael would be of that, because he was someone who wanted to break many records.”
“Going into it, you hope and dream it’ll be that successful. I remember that two years before production even started, I wrote down a list of goals I wanted to accomplish and one was to beat ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and cross the $1 billion mark. When it did that, I was pretty emotional. I was proud of it, because I know how proud Michael would be.”
That is not overnight fame talk. It is a work story.
Jackson grew up in Los Angeles as the son of Jermaine Jackson, surrounded on weekends and holidays by 30 to 40 relatives, game nights, and cookouts. He did not grasp the scale of the family name until about age six, when he saw his father and uncles take the stage as the Jackson 5 at a New York anniversary show and heard the crowd react.
Golf came first. His father put balls in his hands around age four. Music took over around age 12 after a studio visit watching Jermaine build songs from scratch. A debut single, “Got Me Singing,” arrived in 2019. Acting was still ahead of him.
For Michael, preparation became a full-time job for roughly two years before he even knew the role was his. He built a personal archive of songs, demos, journals, rehearsals, and performances. Head coach Angela Gibbs steered him into classes and additional coaches. He studied Stanislavski, Meisner, and Uta Hagen, then adapted tools for the dancing the part demanded.
“It started with dissecting and creating a library of footage of Michael. A library of all his songs, demos, writings and journaling, performances and rehearsals. I immersed myself in that every day. It became a full-time job.”
The breakthrough with King was not a polished audition package. Jackson sent an unsolicited voice note over text, speaking as Michael. King called back fast.
“Getting you a coach tomorrow,” King told him, as Jackson recalled it. Jackson called that the turning point. The voice came first. The movement was harder.
On the “Bad” footwork that closes the film, he said the real test was making the stage work feel free rather than rehearsed. Repetition got him there. Going up on his toes again and again hurt. He said it left him with new respect for ballet dancers.
Colman Domingo played grandfather Joe Jackson. Nia Long played grandmother Katherine. Jackson said scenes with Domingo needed no rehearsal, they arrived, worked, and let Fuqua guide or leave room to discover the take. He described Joe as stricter in his father’s era than the softer grandfather he knew himself, and he credited Domingo’s stillness, eyes, and tone for carrying that difference.
Family screenings were personal and nerve-racking. Jackson did not want to sit there monitoring their faces. He wanted them to take the film on their own terms. Calls came anyway, from cousins as young as 12 and 13, from uncles and aunts, and he said the support left him emotional.
Jermaine Jackson refused an early private look. He waited for the Berlin premiere so he could see it with a crowd. Jaafar was nervous for him. Jermaine got on stage afterward in tears, then called that night or the next day.
“He called me later that night or the next day to say how incredible it was to see his son playing his brother and not be able to tell the difference in so many moments. I told him how high a compliment that is, if I can convince him, me being his son, that I’m actually his brother in that film.”
Not everything shot made the finished picture. Jackson said that is normal on a massive production: editing hunts specific takes, and whole stretches fall away. He framed the lost material as training that still made him better, even when a performance he liked never reached theaters. The original third act, material shot around sensitive subject matter, did not survive the final cut. He did not pretend every choice was easy. He treated it as the job.
Variety chief film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote that Jackson got Michael’s “tentative, high, sugary voice just right.” Jackson has not ducked awards-season duty. He called the conversation an honor, said he would support whatever the studio needs, and described the whole run as fast, surreal, and a push to take on harder work.
He already moved on to a second film. Two days before the Variety conversation he wrapped Supermax in Australia after about 40 days opposite Will Smith, a part with no singing and no dancing, shot far from the all-Los Angeles production of Michael. He said the change of crew, cast, and character was the point.
“No, no, not at all. It’s completely different,” he said when asked if it felt like an extension of the same lane.
A Michael sequel remains unsettled for him personally. Lionsgate’s Adam Fogelson has said production could start late this year or early next, with a release aimed at 2027 or 2028. Jackson said nothing concrete has been told to him, no date, no firm plan, only that his schedule is open and he is ready.
“I haven’t been told anything concrete, but whatever decision is made, I’m more than ready to get back into it and excited for where that goes. I haven’t been told a date or anything solid yet. As far as my schedule, it’s open.”
He met Rami Malek, whose Queen biopic was the record he once wrote on a goal sheet, during Paris Fashion Week and said Malek “couldn’t have been nicer.” No rivalry talk. No entitlement talk. Just another marker on a path he mapped with preparation first.
Hollywood loves destiny narratives. Jackson’s account is plainer: archive the work, send the tape, take the coaching, repeat the steps until they stop looking like steps, and let the box office and the family calls sort out the rest.
