Jaafar Jackson Got Emotional Transforming into Michael Jackson, Talks Recreating "Thriller"

Jafar Jackson, welcome to The Tonight Show. It's amazing. I love the energy. Thank you for coming on. I can't wait to talk about Michael and what a great performance you've done in this film. This is your first movie role. You're playing Michael Jackson, okay? That's as big as you could probably pick for any character to portray in a film, but also this character that you're playing, Michael Jackson, the one and only, happens to be your uncle. Yes. So, Jermaine Jackson is your dad? Yes, Jermaine is my father. I love Jermaine Jackson. You've got to give him my best. Oh, absolutely. I love him. Yeah. So, how did this happen? You found out they're making a biopic? Walk me through it. So, I saw an article where it said that Graham King got the rights to tell Michael's story, and I forgot where I saw it. It was online somewhere. Graham King has made Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh, he's made incredible films. He made Bohemian Rhapsody. The queen biopic. Yes, and my first thought was, who are they going to get to play Michael? And honestly, I didn't think of myself. I was like, this is going to be really interesting. Yeah. Because I didn't know. So, fast forward a couple of months, I get a call from Graham King. He wants to have a Zoom, and I can tell just by that call what this was going to lead to in some way, and then one thing led to the other. We had lunch, and he's kind of looking at me. Like, he asked me, have you ever acted before? I said, never. I've never wanted to be an actor, and I initially told him, you know, I grew up wanting to play golf. I got into music. Okay, well, if he's making a golf movie, sure. It definitely wasn't anything Michael-related, but I grew up loving, obviously, watching Michael's videos and studying his moves and things like that, but fast forward to six months in, he got me a coach that I start to work on a lot of scenes from other films, and it was a multi-year process. It wasn't just a traditional audition. I definitely had to earn the role for a two-year process, really. Learning all the moves and dancing and, I mean. Yeah, just to know I got the part, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Before you even got the part. Before I even officially got the part, and then I had some more time to really hone in all the details, knowing I had the part, yeah. When you're there, when you're in your dressing room, you're dressed, hair and makeup looks fantastic, as Michael. Do you look in the mirror and go, what's going on, or do you go, this is surreal? This is my uncle, this is crazy. Oh, 100%, absolutely. It was really a surreal, a spiritual moment at the same time. You know, spending all those hours in a makeup chair, and thanks to the incredible Bill Corso, who's the head of makeup on the film, just that process of seeing me slowly transform into Michael was, it was emotional. My first reaction was, it was day one, and I was doing the bad tour, the bad performance. That's your first? That was day one of production. Oh my God. They threw you right in. Oh, they threw me right in the deep end. Yeah. Yeah, we did all the performances the first two weeks of shooting, yeah. I remember watching his videos and trying to imitate his dance moves, and doing, you know, beat it, you know, and I was doing it in front of the TV, and I go, oh man, I think I got these moves, man. I think if Michael needs somebody, I could be the next Michael Jackson, yeah. Nice backup dancer. Yes, I couldn't even be his backup dancer, but when you do it, because when you watch it, you have his moves. I mean, you did the work, buddy. You put the work in. You did the homework. Thank you. It's an amazing job. Thank you. It's not just the moonwalk, which, you know, it's more than that, but that must have been pressure, the day that you had to do. The moonwalk? Yeah. Well, see, going into it, I always told myself, what should I start on first? And then I had incredible guidance from Rich and Tone, who are Michael's actual choreographers that he had on tour during the history tour. Oh my God. So we broke down frame by frame the Billie Jean performance from Motown 25, and that was the first set of choreography I started to learn throughout the process, and I had 20 days to kind of prove to them and the filmmakers that I can pull it off within those 20 days, even though in my mind, I was like, 20 days? How can I do that? I need a lot more time, and within that time, I was very doubtful, and it was incredibly challenging. I can only imagine looking back at those videos now, and it's horrible. You pulled it off. No, you pulled it off. Compared to now, how it looks on the film, it's way different. Oh yeah, than when you first started. But I mean, let me just show everybody. This is Michael Jackson in the Thriller video in 1983. This is Jafar as Michael during the Thriller. And this was, you filmed this in the same location where Michael did the Thriller video? Same exact location for two nights all through the night, and we actually had a full moon on one of those nights. It was just crazy. That's the kind of Michael Jackson magic. You had a full moon? We had a full moon, and it was cold. I know he shot during the summer, but just being at that location, seeing the zombies around me was, I was like, I mean, that's one of my favorite videos other than Smooth Criminal, but to be in the real location was incredible. You did such a, it's a fantastic job, and I want everyone to see a clip, but first I want to let everyone know that our friends at IMAX are giving everyone in the audience two tickets to see Michael in IMAX. Thank you, Jafar. Here's the clip. Here's Jafar Jackson in Michael. Take a look. ♪ The kiss of my soul ♪ A little bit more tonight, so stick around.