He just turned 30 years old and Jaafar Jackson couldn’t celebrate them at a better personal moment. His first film, Michael, has become the highest-grossing biographical movie in history, having grossed to date 991 million dollars, far ahead of what Oppenheimer brought Universal. And although the critics were not exactly generous with the film directed by Antoine Fuqua and co-produced by Michael Jackson’s own family, the extraordinary work he has done to become who his uncle was in real life promises to give him a place in the Oscar race.
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As if that were not enough, everything is underway for a second part with a scheduled release date sometime in 2028. The studio backing the project, Lionsgate, has indicated that 30 percent of what will appear in the sequel was already filmed along with the first part and that Jaafar will be the protagonist. And although today he only dreams of a great career as an actor, nothing of what he is living was ever in his plans. Not many know that when the powerful producer Graham King acquired the rights to the life of the king of pop, he was not sure who could take on the arduous task of stepping into the shoes of such a popular figure.
Jaafar, son of Jermaine Jackson with Colombian Alejandra Genevieve Oaziaza, also did not think he would play a role in bringing his uncle’s life to the big screen. Until the moment King called him for an informal meeting, his passion was music, and the closest he had been to the cameras was during the filming of the reality show Living with the Jacksons aired in the United States when he had just passed adolescence, which lasted only one season. “I met Graham when I was about 12 or 13 years old because I accompanied my father to a meeting he had with him. I haven’t seen him since then, but he saw a video in which I sang with him at a charity concert in Europe,” Jaafar said in a recent interview with La Vanguardia, then clarifying: “Initially he contacted me because he thought my voice, which sounds like Michael’s, could help him in post-production. But after that conversation, he proposed that we meet for lunch. When we ate, I noticed he was observing all my gestures. Maybe he thought I was auditioning for him, but that was never my intention. However, he noticed there was something very natural in me that reminded him of my uncle. That’s when he asked me if I had ever acted, and I answered no.”
Indeed, although he participated in a theater group in high school, that had never been his dream: “I love cinema, but as a viewer. It never occurred to me to act in a movie, mine was always music and sports. Graham was unfazed and proposed working with a drama teacher to see what happened. And although I told him I needed time to think about it, I was very clear about what his idea was when he started asking me those questions,” he said in the interview.
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Once he accepted the proposal, he prepared intensely for three and a half years, and in the last two, everything became even more intense. It was not enough to be able to act naturally, but he also had to replicate some of the iconic musical numbers that made Michael Jackson a superstar. When asked if it was more complicated to transform into his uncle or into the pop legend, Jaafar admits it was a double challenge for him: “I saw the character from both perspectives, but it is also true that I tried to distance myself from my family relationship and see everything from the beginning as if I knew nothing about Michael Jackson,” he admits and describes: “I started reading many books about him, listened to all his music, from when he was part of the Jackson Five to his solo albums and tried to acquire a deeper knowledge of who he was as a person. But it is also true that being from his family, I could rely on my own memories and talk to some relatives who shared details with me that I would never have found in a book or a video.”
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Although the first film avoids the controversies that marked his last years, Jaafar says the biggest misunderstanding surrounding his figure is the unique situation he had to live through: “He was the most famous person on the planet, and that makes people not see him as a human being. Everyone formed their own idea of who he was, helped by the fact that he was so mysterious and private. That’s why above all else I tried to show his humanity,” says the one who is happily engaged to singer Maddie Simpson.
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