Whether it was showing the singer as a young boy performing with his brothers in colorful ’70s attire on American Bandstand and The Ed Sullivan Show or including moments of Jackson maneuvering through crowds of passionate fans wearing an array of military-inspired jackets or plaid shirts, Rodgers did not miss key details in making you feel like you were watching Jackson himself.
One might think that when working on a film of this caliber, one could rely on dipping into the singer’s archive, but that was not the case here. Rodgers recreated everything. “From the socks to the gloves, I mean everything. Essentially, what Jaafar [Jackson] put on would be no different from the day that Michael Jackson put on that garment. I studied the research. I would literally compare not just what was in my book, but I also had old archives of Jet magazines. Any and everything that I could find at the time that might have had a clear picture of Michael and his brothers that would inform my final decision when it came to recreating all of the garments.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Vanity Fair: What did it feel like to get the call to do costume design for Michael?
Marci Rodgers: Taking a step back, I remember when I was a graduate student at University of Maryland, I remember then saying that I was going to costume-design a movie on Emmett Till. During that moment, I believe I was doing a play in Atlanta on Nina Simone. And that’s when I came across the book [The] King of Style, which describes and basically walks through the looks of Michael Jackson’s wardrobe, and [said] to myself, I’m going to costume-design a movie on Michael Jackson. That was maybe five to seven years ago. Fast-forward, so when I got the call to do Michael, I was outside of my parents’ home in Illinois. First, I had a moment [to myself], and then the way that I announced it to my family was, I actually didn’t tell them right away, but I ordered Michael Jackson T-shirts and gave the shirts to them.
And I’m sure they were extremely excited?
To be honest, I don’t know. [Laughs] I think they were. My family kind of has a second degree of separation, because my father grew up in Gary. So a lot of my trajectory in film, it’s all kismet. So of course they were excited, and then it was time to focus and really dive into the research, which was my first step.
