The way Jamaal Fields-Green tells it, his journey to becoming Michael Jackson wasn’t exactly destiny — it was serendipity.
In March 2022, the performer was sitting in a Broadway theater, watching “MJ The Musical” during intermission, when he checked his email. There, glowing on his phone screen, was an audition notice for future replacements in the role of MJ. “I was literally watching the show on Broadway when I got the email,” Fields-Green recalls. “It was crazy.”
That moment of cosmic timing has led Fields-Green to make theater history as the only performer to portray Michael Jackson across all three major productions of the Tony Award-winning musical: Broadway, the U.S. national tour, and now London’s West End, where he took over the lead role at the Prince Edward Theatre in January.
For Fields-Green, carrying MJ’s legacy across three stages isn’t just another day at the office — it’s a responsibility that runs deep. “MJ is one of, if not the greatest of all time,” he says. “To be able to have done that and taken it as far as I’ve taken it, it’s humbling. It’s also just a reminder of how powerful his legacy is and how far it carries across the world.”
Fields-Green’s path to the moonwalk began in an unlikely place: a high school music theory class that he and his rap group friends signed up for, hoping to learn how to read music. They didn’t pay attention — “when you put us in the classroom, we goof around too much” — but their teacher saw something special in their charisma and suggested they audition for the school play.
What started as a joke among friends who “all played sports” became a life-changing moment. Fields-Green landed the role of Seaweed in “Hairspray” and discovered his calling. The following year, playing the Scarecrow in “The Wiz” (which feels particularly prophetic now as Michael Jackson played the role in the 1978 Sidney Lumet film adaptation), his choreographer pulled his mother aside and told her that her son had the it factor.
“He said I could do this for the rest of my life if I took it serious enough,” Fields-Green remembers. That conversation led to an acting coach, college auditions at top schools across the country and eventually a spot at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
Fresh out of college, Fields-Green booked “Hamilton,” playing John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the Chicago company from 2018 to 2020. Those were “some of the best years of my life,” he says, where he learned about both the business and himself as an artist and human being.
When the pandemic shut down live theater, Fields-Green used the time to dive into writing and directing, fulfilling a longtime ambition. He’d always directed his own music videos but never had time to write scripts. The forced hiatus became a creative renaissance — adversity turned into opportunity.
When theater reopened, that fateful night at “MJ” on Broadway changed everything. The audition process that followed was rigorous — singing, dancing four numbers and flying to Los Angeles to work with Rich and Tone Talauega, Michael Jackson’s own choreographers who helped develop the show’s movement vocabulary.
The preparation paid off. Fields-Green became a standby on Broadway, then the first alternate in the company’s history for the national tour, before taking over the lead role halfway through last year and transferring to London in January.
Jamaal Fields-Green – “MJ the Musical”
Matthew Murphy
Playing someone as iconic and scrutinized as Michael Jackson comes with unique challenges that go beyond typical character work. “I’m playing someone that walked and breathed on this earth,” Fields-Green explains. “Someone who has a legacy that they left behind, and their legacy is in my hands for the duration of the show. And with that is a huge responsibility. I don’t take it very lightly. But with that, I have no choice but to continuously perfect the craft of playing MJ.”
The physical demands alone are staggering. Jackson’s movement was so distinctive that “you can have a silhouetted picture of a toe stand, or just one of his moves or poses, and you could pinpoint him. You could just have the loafers and the socks, and you know who that is,” Fields-Green explains.
Fields-Green, who describes himself as a little bit of a bigger guy than MJ, had to lean out for the role and completely retrain his body. He works with a trainer twice a week — originally three times in New York — focusing on strength conditioning and what he calls injury prevention to ensure peak performance night after night.
“This choreography is so detailed. It’s hard. It requires a lot of determination and focus,” he says. “I still practice to this day.” The show’s choreography, created by two-time Tony Award winner Christopher Wheeldon with input from Jackson’s own collaborators, has earned Tony and Olivier Awards. “It speaks for itself with the awards, but when you also see it, it’s mesmerizing to say the least,” Fields-Green notes.
Perhaps the most complex aspect of portraying Michael Jackson is balancing the supreme performer with the deeply conflicted human being. The musical doesn’t shy away from the allegations that shadowed Jackson’s later career, and Fields-Green has had to find ways to honor both the artistry and the complexity.
“We are multi-dimensional human beings. We have all these facets of ourselves,” he explains. His research went far beyond the hits — he scoured YouTube for interviews, documentaries and conversations where Jackson discussed his lack of childhood, his struggles and his shortcomings.
“What I love about this show is that we’re able to show the human being behind the icon,” Fields-Green says. “Really just tapping into who MJ was as a human, first and foremost, and as a creative. Showing how much he cared about his work, about helping others and giving magic to the world.”
Having performed the role across three different productions, Fields-Green has become something of an expert on how Jackson’s music transcends cultural boundaries. The differences between American and London audiences have been particularly striking, but he’s learned to rock with it regardless of geography.
“London, you guys definitely are more reserved. Theater etiquette is the way I like to say it. You guys practice theater etiquette like no other,” he observes. But he’s learned that a quiet audience doesn’t mean a disengaged one. “It could feel quiet, because at the end of the show, the reactions are always the same. Audiences are going nuts, are on their feet, clapping and screaming.”
Ask Fields-Green if there’s a particular moment where he feels like he truly embodies Michael Jackson, and his answer reveals the perfectionist streak he shares with the King of Pop. “It’s a mentality,” he says. “My biggest thing is making sure that I portray him as authentically as possible, because I know I’m not him.”
He’s quick to point out that there will only ever be one MJ — someone he describes as such an alien when it comes to his talent, his drive, the things he was able to achieve. But there are moments, particularly during “Smooth Criminal,” where he feels untouchable.
“It’s like chasing a ceiling, and you can reach it, but the second that you do, it raises again,” he says. “The bar and the ceiling is always going to keep raising, because he was that great. But the more and more you find yourself chasing it and reaching it and then continuously having to up the bar, the better of an artist you’re going to become.”
Embodying Jackson has profoundly influenced Fields-Green’s own creative work as a writer and director. Both men are Virgos, and Fields-Green has found kinship in Jackson’s legendary attention to detail. “I was already like that, and seeing that he was like that made me want to tap into that even more,” he says. “Execution is so important in general, but especially with what we do.”
Jackson’s unwillingness to compromise on his artistic vision — which is a key facet of “MJ The Musical” —has become a guiding principle for Fields-Green. “Trusting your gut as an artist is so important,” he notes. “The biggest takeaway — which is something that’s hard for me that I’m still learning — is that not everyone, maybe no one, is going to see your vision like you are, until you show them what it is.”
As Fields-Green looks toward the future, he’s ready to beat it — or rather, to move on from MJ. “This is looking like this will be my last year. Happily, I’m ready to hang up my loafers, so to speak,” he says, though he leaves the door open for a potential return to Broadway in the role down the line.
His ambitions stretch across multiple mediums. Under his moniker Jay Hassan, he’s releasing music with visual storytelling at its core, including a current EP called “What Was the Reason” with multiple music videos in development. His production company, Daydreamer, serves as both a filmmaking venture and record label.
He’s completing a horror short film called “Shadows” for the festival circuit — a genre departure that reflects his desire to challenge himself creatively. His previous short film, “The Trick,” won him best actor at the Las Vegas Indie Film Festival, and he’s developing feature scripts he hopes to pitch in the coming years.
Theater remains in his plans, too. “I want to do a play next, you know, right after ‘MJ,’” he says. “It’s gonna be hard to find a role for musical theater that allows me to sing, act and dance, all three the way that I am able to do in this show.” He’s already working with an acting coach who teaches at Shakespeare’s Globe, with an eye toward classical theater.
Fields-Green’s ultimate goal goes beyond any single medium or role. “I just want to be a huge heavy hitter in this business, in this industry, and to eventually leave a legacy of my own behind that’ll live long, long, long, long after I’m gone,” he declares.
