'MJ' star Jamaal Fields-Green moonwalks his way into the West End

Jamaal Fields-Green has already starred as MJ on Broadway and in the US national tour, and now he’s taking to the West End in the hit musical about the King of Pop.

Last month, the West End welcomed its new Michael Jackson in MJ the Musical, with Jamaal Fields-Green taking over the role from Tony Award winner Myles Frost. But it wasn’t his first time moon-walking across the Prince Edward stage as the King of Pop. In April 2024, the performer was flown in on a red-eye flight from the US at the last minute to step into the role when cast illness took out Frost, his alternate Kieran Alleyne, and standby Kwamé Kandekore.

“I arrived around 8.30am, I got to my hotel, I went straight to the gym and ran a mile to warm up my body,” he says. Fields-Green immediately went into rehearsals with the company and within hours of his flight, he was performing in the West End as part of a two-show day. He continues, “I got through both shows and the company looked at me like I was an alien. They were like, ‘Who are you? What are you? How are you standing right now?’”

Fields-Green completed a show the following night and then returned to the US national tour the very next day. It is this work ethic that has propelled him to success in MJ the Musical, first on Broadway, then on the US national tour, and now in the West End, making him the only performer to star in the title role in all three.

Alongside his stage work, which includes Hamilton, Newsies, and Tarell Alvin McCraney's coming-of-age play Choir Boy, Fields-Green is also a successful recording artist and filmmaker, with his short film The Trick showcased at the LA Black Film Festival. “I worked my butt off to get here,” he says. “I carry my family’s legacy on my back. I owe it to myself but I owe it to everyone else who has paved the way for me to be here.”

Raised by a strong mother in a multigenerational household in the Bronx in New York, Fields-Green showed signs of his passion for the arts from an early age. His grandpa would step in as DJ and play Michael Jackson hits like “Thriller”, “Beat It”, and “You Rock My World”, as well as “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, because “who doesn’t love that song?” he says. Fields-Green would tell his grandpa to “hit it” and dance for the rest of his family in the living room of their home. “Michael Jackson has always been in my life,” he says, adding that two big MJ posters (one of Thriller and the other of his favourite album Bad) still hang on the wall of his old room in his mum’s house.

Fields-Green also recalls travelling to work with his mum as a child and, while waiting in her office at the television company NBC, staring at all the movie billboards, which kickstarted an early infatuation with the film industry.

But it wasn’t until well into high school that the performing arts became a bigger focus, when one of his friends secretly signed up their group to audition for Hairspray and he was cast as Seaweed in the school musical. The next year Fields-Green performed as the Scarecrow in The Wiz, and the choreographer took his mum to one side and said, “Jamaal has the ‘It’ factor.”

Fields-Green was put in touch with acting coach John McDonald, who remains a mentor to this day, and he started the process of applying for college, facing down rejection from schools to land a place at performing arts conservatory the Hartt School in Connecticut.

With no prior professional training in dance, theatre or singing, Fields-Green had stiff competition but was determined to make himself into a triple-threat performer. “I grew up looking at the Michael Jacksons, the Ushers, the Beyoncés. Sam Cooke is one of my favourite artists of all time. I looked up to the artists who could do everything,” he says. “But I faced adversity and challenges, and was a fish out of water, not being a typical theatre kid. I have tattoos, I talk differently to other people. I was myself, unapologetically — and I stuck to the dream.”

That dream was realised before Fields-Green even finished college, as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s epic musical Hamilton about the American Founding Fathers came calling. Cast as John Laurens in the Chicago production, Fields-Green “was a broke college kid making money and living on my own in this beautiful city.”

Hamilton became a springboard for Fields-Green, who found himself “surrounded by artists” as he became immersed in the Chicago arts scene. He and the rest of the cast performed new material as part of variety shows, from burlesque to original music. This led to Fields-Green having his own set at the music festival Lollapalooza in 2019, as well as opportunities in film, TV, and voiceover work — including a national Doritos advert.

Fields-Green owes a lot to Hamilton — even love, as he met his fiancé Amber Tiara on the show, and they have since starred together in the US touring production of MJ the Musical.

Interestingly, in 2020 he auditioned for middle Michael — three performers play MJ across different ages in the show — and was in callbacks, but didn’t get the part. “That’s how the business goes, and I don’t think it was the role for me at the time,” he says. It wasn’t until years later, after the pandemic, that Fields-Green’s MJ journey really started. Attending a performance of the show on Broadway as a theatregoer, he checked his emails during the interval and saw one from his agent about an audition opportunity for the musical’s next King of Pop. “I went from theatre patron to student right there. I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’m studying now,’” he says. Following a rigorous audition process, he became a standby for middle Michael and MJ on Broadway, and the rest is history.

So how has he made the role his own? “Everybody portrays it differently. How Myles does it is not how I do it. Or Elijah [Johnson] on Broadway, or Jordan [Markus] on the US tour. We all play different facets.”

He continues, “I play to his sense of humour — the child that he was at heart. It's because I'm a child at heart [...] What I love about the show is that we get to see the human being behind the icon.”

Fields-Green sees himself in Michael: “ I understand how meticulous he was, and the drive for how he was always trying to push the bar — but the bar was himself. And I'm very much the same way with everything that I do in life.”

He received training from Rich and Tone Talauega, two dancers on Jackson’s HIStory World Tour, but explains that the role is a constant work-in-progress and the independent practice never stops. “You get what you put into this role,” he says. “I’ve done a lot of work on my own, a lot of studying. YouTube is my best friend. I’ve also studied the greats. I’ve watched James Brown footage, all the famous pop lockers from LA: Pop n Taco, Boogaloo Shrimp, Popin’ Pete, as well as Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.” He also says it takes about two months for the moonwalk “to really settle into your body, because we’re portraying someone who was a master of his craft.”

Fields-Green’s ambition is clear to see. In addition to leading a West End musical, he is a talented recording artist with a new EP dropping this month. He also wants his production company Daydrmr to expand, creating projects “that leave a mark.” As for his stage goals, he’d love to star in a straight play while he is here in London, or Sweeney Todd — “my favourite Sondheim piece.”

However, Fields-Green wants to see more risk-taking and originality in theatre, too: “We have to continue to push. That’s what the arts are [all about].” For a performer who hopped on a red-eye flight and took to the stage in a new country only hours later, we have no doubt there will be some thrilling risks in his future.

Book MJ the Musical tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Jamaal Fields-Green. (Photos courtesy of production)

This article first appeared in the February 2025 issue of London Theatre Magazine.