When Matte Martinez was a kid growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, he had Michael Jackson-themed birthday parties where, "if you weren't dressed as Michael Jackson, you weren't allowed in," he recalled. "It was serious." For one birthday, his mom, who owned a dance studio, got him a red leather jacket, just like the one that Jackson wears in his "Thriller" music video. 

And this Halloween, when Martinez leads a special post-curtain-call performance of "Thriller," he'll be wearing that jacket; eight times a week, he plays the King of Pop in MJ The Musical at the Neil Simon Theatre. "It's actually kind of wild that I get to upgrade in this way," he marvels, then adding with the glee of a true fan, "I really want this jacket for myself. So who knows, maybe they'll give me the jacket." Granted, he would only get a costume piece if he were to ever leave the show, which Martinez doesn't plan to anytime soon. 

After serving as the MJ standby since October 31, 2023, in September, Martinez was bumped up to playing the title role of MJ full-time, living every Jackson fan's dream as he gets to moonwalk across a Broadway stage. 

In person, it's impressive how the 22-year-old performer, making his Broadway debut, is able to embody Jackson, who is in his 30s in the time period dramatized in MJ. The four-time Tony-winning musical, featuring Jackson's hit songs and a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, is set in 1992. In the show, the hit-maker is getting ready for his  "Dangerous" world tour while battling media scrutiny, personal demons, and the self-imposed pressure to create artistic perfection. 

Offstage, Martinez has a deeper voice than the high-pitched one he uses onstage, and punctuates most of his answers with a boyish smile. But that doesn't stop Michael Jackson fans from treating him like he's their beloved icon come back to life. Martinez doesn't let it get to his head though, wisely noting: "It's a wild suspension of disbelief, honestly. People at the stage door call me Michael. I'm like, well, he's not with us currently ... That factor, I think, honestly stems from nostalgia, being able to see this icon, this legend, being portrayed in this way."

Like Jackson, Martinez began performing at a young age. Martinez grew up in an artistic family; his dad is a drummer and his mom and aunt co-own a dance studio, where Martinez regularly took classes. The family would often take the train to New York to see Broadway shows (Martinez's first show was The Lion King). When he was 10, his mother saw an audition notice for Kidz Bop, and as a burgeoning theatre kid, Martinez had no hesitancy about sending in a tape. He booked the gig and at 10 years old, he was singing to a few hundred people. By his third year in Kidz Bop, Martinez was performing in venues with over 3,000 people. 

Martinez admitted when he first went to the Kidz Bop training camp, he was nervous. "That first day, I was not talking. I wasn't really like doing much, because I was so shy," he recalls. "All the other kids were also older than me, and I was just a kid from North Bergen, New Jersey, who had no idea what he was doing. But somehow, some way, I had this fire and passion in me that needed to be seen."

After three years on Kidz Bop, Martinez's mother moved him and his brother to Los Angeles to help him pursue his performance career. Then he saw the audition notice for MJ, for a standby—someone who can go on when the lead actor can't. As a "diehard Michael fan," that was a no-brainer.

And as a former child performer, Martinez could relate to Jackson (in the show, child Jackson and teenage Jackson are played by two other actors). "I think [being] a shy kid allows me to bring that side of myself to Michael, because Michael also was shy and Michael was skeptical," muses Martinez. "I do embrace all change, in any form, but I think I'm always just a bit like … 'What does this mean for this and this?' I'm analytical in that way. So I think Michael was, too. He had no choice but to be that way."

Being a standby has kept Martinez on his toes nearly two years, and it's not just the famous Jackson dance move. As a standby, Martinez has to be ready backstage at a moment's notice, in case the lead actor (formerly Elijah Rhea Johnson) gets sick. And there were times when he'd have to go on mid-show, such as the time when he'd just come back from vacationing at Disney World and was asleep backstage when he got a tap on the shoulder telling him he was going on in 15 minutes, for the show's second act. 

"I was like, oh my God, panicking," Martinez recalls with a chuckle. "A swing friend of mine, [Blu Allen], was in the room hanging out. And when he heard me, like, make a sound, he was like, 'Oh, we need to get you a tea immediately.' So he started helping." Another cast member ran out the theatre and down the street to Martinez's apartment to get his contact lenses, which he had forgotten at home. And moments later, Martinez was ready for the top of Act Two, which begins with "Billie Jean." Exclaims Martinez, "Mid-show swing ons, crazy!" 

Doing MJ eight times a week hasn't dampened his enthusiasm for the material. Martinez says he's open to leading MJ for "as long as my body and my voice and my spirit allows me to. I love the role, I love the show, and I love the people honestly," he says passionately. 

It also gives him time to work on his own musical in his off-hours. He's currently writing an original musical called Oakwood with two friends, Jaheem King Toombs and Jackson Pace—about young artists trying to make it in the entertainment industry. It is produced by Kenny Ortega, who directed three of Michael Jackson's tours (including Dangerous) and the High School Musical trilogy. "We pitched this to him in his backyard," remarks Martinez. The pitch took three hours, laughed Martinez, "because we'd never pitched anything to anybody before."

Martinez can't reveal a premiere date for Oakwood, but he's confident it'll see the light of day soon. As for the present, he's filled with energy. On the day of our interview, he had just done a performance on the Today Show, and now he was getting ready for that night's performance of MJ. For this former shy kid from New Jersey, Martinez is confident that this is where he's meant to be.

"I've gotten a lot of no's in my life, a lot of no's that have made me feel small or discouraged, unworthy," he muses. "But I love what I do, and I know the effect of what I do. I know the effect that it has on other people, and there's nothing like it, honestly ... Art changes lives, and to be able to be a part of that is worth every penny, worth every sweat, every tear, every hard-working effort. The industry also allows you to make connections and build friendships and family. It's so special. It's like a yin and a yang, you know? But if you can find that middle ground and you can find that balance, it is incredible."

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Photo: Matte Martinez in MJ on Broadway

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