*Ilario Grant has taken the King of Pop around the world, and now he’s brought him to Broadway.
The actor, singer and dancer took over the title role in “MJ,” the Tony Award-winning musical, on Sept. 15 at the Neil Simon Theatre. Grant first played Michael in the Australian production, opening the show in Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. Critics there praised his ability to capture Jackson’s electricity, artistry and signature physical style on stage. His next stop is Japan, where he’ll close out his run as Michael in early 2027.
The timing could hardly be better. Jackson is experiencing a major resurgence in 2026. “Michael,” the biopic starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, became the highest-grossing music biopic ever. Meanwhile, “Thriller” climbed back to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart, while “Billie Jean” topped the R&B Streaming Songs chart.
In an interview with EURweb, Grant opened up about landing the role, keeping up with eight shows a week and giving audiences a glimpse of the Michael Jackson many fans never got to see.
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For Grant, leading the Broadway company is a surreal experience.
“It’s kind of surreal, if I’m honest. Like, I never thought that a role like this could be on Broadway, and so for it to be here on Broadway, running as long as it’s been running, yeah, I feel blessed. I’m so blessed to step on that stage every night.”
The opportunity came through an open call. Grant submitted his audition “amongst hundreds of other MJ applicants” and left the outcome in God’s hands.
“Booking the role was a shock to me, a surprise, because, like I said, open call, you know, is unique. I didn’t get an appointment from an agent, right? I just had to submit myself,” he recalled. “Yeah… a leap of faith, and then once I booked the role, I cried, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is about to change my life.'”
His connection to Jackson, however, began long before the Broadway opportunity. Grant’s introduction to the music legend came during childhood, when a particular music video made quite an impression.
“I got introduced to Michael Jackson around the age of like seven or eight. And it was me and my twin brother watching the ‘Thriller’ music video,” Grant shared. “I was terrified at the time when I was watching it, but I think that kind of opened the door for me and Michael Jackson’s music and his career.”
Bringing an icon to life on stage requires balancing the familiar elements of Jackson’s performance style with an interpretation that feels authentic to the actor. Grant credits the show’s creative team with helping him stay true to Jackson’s movements and speaking voice, while drawing on his own experiences to shape the character.
“I’m not sure what Michael felt at this time in 1992. I wasn’t born yet, but… I think that I can infer and pull from my own experiences in certain scenes,” he explained. “So that’s what makes it unique to me and myself, but also keeping the essence of Michael Jackson alive on stage so that the audience can feel that as well.”
The physical demands of the production are another part of the experience. Performing eight shows a week across six days requires Grant to be intentional about how he cares for his body and voice.
“It’s a lot of rest… on my days off, and making sure that I take care of my body… massages and, you know, bathhouses and recovery stretching… saunas,” Grant said. “And then vocally, I don’t speak or sing as much when I’m not meant to.”
Despite the demands, Grant has a favorite moment he looks forward to bringing to the stage each night: “Smooth Criminal.”
“For most of the audience members, they don’t expect it. Like, you can see our costumes and kind of anticipate, but they don’t really know what’s happening until it happens, right?” he said. “It’s one of the major shocks that we do in the show to the audience members, which is great.”
The excitement surrounding Jackson’s music is something Grant sees reflected in the theater. With the biopic introducing the singer’s legacy to audiences again, he believes the stage production is part of that renewed interest.
“I think there’s a resurgence of Michael Jackson that is happening, that has happened within this year, and I think that the ‘Michael’ movie had a lot to do with that,” Grant noted. “With the movie and the combination of the theater stage show, it just blew his name all the way up again. Which is why he’s charting again.”
Grant’s own performance journey began in Douglasville, Georgia, where he started performing as a child and trained in acting, singing and dance around Atlanta. In 2020, he was selected for the R&B boy band Afterours. He later added screen credits in “Praise This” with Chloe Bailey, “A (Very) Musical Christmas” and “The Jermaine Plane.”
Those experiences also helped prepare him for the discipline required in a Broadway production. Grant said his time in the boy band taught him to approach performing as a year-round commitment.
“During that boy band season of my life, I was training on holidays. We were performing on birthdays… We didn’t have much free time. You know what I mean? Because we had to get it right and it had to be correct,” he said. “And so I kind of relate that to theater because it’s, you know, 365 days a year… We don’t have an off season.”
Beyond recreating Jackson’s iconic performances, Grant hopes audiences leave the theater with a deeper appreciation of the person behind the superstar. For him, showing Jackson’s humanity is just as important as capturing his talent.
“I want audiences to know that Michael was a human and that he had emotions. And what I mean by that is, like, we oftentimes, as fans and supporters of his, put him on a pedestal higher than humanity, right?” he said. “He laughed, he cried, he smiled, he was upset, he was angry… he felt all the emotions that humans feel. And so I try to portray that on stage throughout all of the scene work.”
Watch EURweb’s full interview with Ilario Grant below.
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