Well... Actually, it’s not that Michael Jackson. But it is an interesting story.

When we were looking for someone to do the voice over for the film, we wanted someone who sounded scholarly and leaned towards British voices. Michael Jackson wound up in the batch and sounded perfect so we figured go with what works and worry about the name coincidence later. Okay, so now it’s later.

The Michael Jackson featured in The Naked Ape is actually the other famous Michael Jackson and was actually the first famous Michael Jackson, which is the cause of the confusion. Our Michael Jackson is well known as a talk radio personality and even has a star on the walk of fame for it.

The production was signatory to SAG, the actor’s union, and so obviously this Michael Jackson is SAG, but then so is the other one, the singing one that is. It’s a fact that SAG has a rule that no two actors in SAG can have exactly the same name for this very reason. The only problem was that while our Michael Jackson joined SAG first, the other Michael Jackson is slightly more well known and refused to be known on screen by anything other than “Michael Jackson”. SAG made an exception. These are the only two guys in the history of SAG to have the right to the same name in the credits.

In the end, Michael Jackson worked out great and we’re very happy with our decision not to let the name confusion get in the way of what was right for the movie. Plus we get to have this great little story to tell. Hopefully, fans of the other Michael Jackson won’t be too disappointed to learn he wasn’t involved.