Matte Martinez on his Full Circle MJ Debut and Living the Broadway Dream

Age: 22

Hometown: North Bergen, New Jersey

Current Role: Matte Martinez is now leading MJ, the musical that brings Michael Jackson’s life and artistry to the stage. Martinez steps into the spotlight full time after serving as the standby for MJ and Michael since October 2023.

Credits: MJ marks Martinez’s official Broadway debut, but his career has already taken him from national tours to television. For three years, Martinez performed across the country with Kidz Bop and has been featured in a number of television series since, including playing the voice of Andre Hill on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Ty on the Nickelodeon series Side Hustle, as well as roles on the Good Doctor and Saturdays.

It’s Where Everything Started, You Know?
“I love Jersey. I was there pretty much from birth to fifth grade,” said Martinez. He spent much of his childhood at the dance studio owned and co-run by his mother and aunt, where he would “dance to the music without the knowledge of what [he] was doing.” Despite his mom’s studio and his dad being a musician, Martinez says his discovery and love of dance was a “natural thing.” When his mother realized how much her son seemed to love dancing—not to mention his talent—“she was like, you know what? We should probably put him in classes.” Eventually Matinez’s mom took a major leap and moved him and his brother to Los Angeles with no connections whatsoever. Martinez shouted out his mom who “sacrificed everything, so much so it’s not even funny,” and recalled her telling him, “I know this industry is meant for you and I want to help you get to where you want to go, so let’s do it.” No surprise, she was front and center in the audience for his official first bow in MJ. “She talks about how she's always been able to see this for me, and the fact that it's happening is no surprise, but it's also so earned,” Martinez said.

Oh, Snap. This is My World.
As an audience member, Martinez’s first Broadway show was The Lion King, and he said the experience “fully shifted [his] entire world.” After that life-changing introduction to the New York stage, Martinez went on a deep dive, scouring the internet for behind-the-scenes footage of director Julie Taymor’s creative choices and the process for building the musical’s epic costumes and set pieces. But it was seeing In the Heights on Broadway at eight years old that cemented Martinez’s Broadway aspirations. “I was like, oh, snap. This is my world. It was hip-hop and reggaeton and I knew these people because I'm Dominican, so I fully felt seen in that way,” Martinez gushed.

A Distant Future Thing Became Now
Martinez always dreamed of landing a role on Broadway, but he never imagined it would happen quite so fast. For the past five years, he’s been developing his own original musical called Oakwood alongside his two best friends, Jaheem King Toombs and Jackson Pace, who are also writers and performers. In the back of Martinez’s mind, he imagined Oakwood would be his Broadway debut in “however many years.” So, when the opportunity to step into MJ arrived in 2023, his big break took him completely off guard. “It was crazy how quick the turnaround was,” he said. After two self-tapes and a work session in New York, he had an offer, and suddenly, the “distant future thing” became the here and now.

Secretly Getting Ready for the Role
According to Martinez, he was “the biggest fan” since childhood,“ obsessed with everything Michael Jackson did.” So passionate about the King of Pop, he famously threw multiple childhood birthday parties with the rule that: “If you didn't show up dressed up as Michael Jackson you were not allowed inside.” On some level, Martinez said he was “secretly, subliminally, fully getting ready for the role.” In fact, he even played Michael Jackson as a kid in his mom’s dance recital dedicated to Jackson’s music. “There's pictures of me in the ‘Billie Jean’ outfit at, like, seven,” Martinez remarked on the full circle nature of it all.

What a Feeling
Though Martinez truly loves every minute of being on stage in the musical, he described MJ as a thrilling but “very demanding show.” In his words, it’s “full out all the time” and “literally every two seconds we’re doing a dance number,” which requires great care for the voice and body. Still, he values the community most, calling the love the company shares “contagious.” And while his first official bow in the leading role came on September 2, his very first Broadway bow as a standby was equally significant. “I had maybe, like, 20 people in the audience that day.” Martinez recounted how his mom and dad, brother, best friend, and many people he grew up with showed up for him, with friends and family even flying in from Los Angeles. As Martinez put it, these are the people who saw him “cry over self-tapes” or “get frustrated I didn’t get a job,” and then watched him take that triumphant first Broadway bow. He called the experience on stage that night “unreal,” solidifying in his “heart of hearts that, like, this is what I’m meant to be doing.” “Oh, my God. I'm a kid from North Bergen, New Jersey. That doesn't really happen, right?” Martinez confessed. “Being able to do that and being able to say that I'm one of the first to do that, it's a beautiful thing.”