Jaalen Best Becomes Muhammad Ali in 'The Greatest'

A new biographical series about Muhammad Ali, 'The Greatest,' has cast 28-year-old relative unknown Jaalen Best as the renowned boxer, with Michael B. Jordan and Ben Watkins producing.

The choice was deliberate. Ali was one of the most famous people in history, so the producers felt fortunate to find Best, an actor who both resembles the boxer and, as a relative unknown, can disappear into the role. That is the theory, anyway. Fame cuts both ways when your subject is a face the whole planet knows.

What stood between actor and icon?

Tattoos. Best has something Ali did not: ink. Makeup artists covered the tattoos during filming but not always completely. In May, reviewing nearly finished footage in an edit bay at a Los Angeles production office, Watkins, the showrunner, spotted raised ink on the actor's arm and pointed it out to a colleague. "We're on the lookout," he said between bites of a breakfast burrito.

It's a small detail with large stakes. The series aims to humanize one of the most consequential figures in American history, and precision was vital both for the story and for Watkins's own credibility.

Whose approval mattered most?

Lonnie Ali's, the boxer's widow. Watkins compared pitching her his vision of the series to meeting a girlfriend's father before proposing. The comparison is doing a lot of work: one awkward dinner versus custody of an American legend's memory.

The meeting ran two hours. It left its mark. One of Watkins's associates was still so rattled afterward that he nervously fumbled his own name when Ali asked.

"She's protecting that legacy, and she's not going to suffer fools," Watkins said.

In a video interview, Ali, 60, said she respected Watkins's willingness to collaborate, his commitment to accuracy and his bravery to absorb her demands in person.

"He'd listen to my insights on things, because he was discovering Muhammad, too, through his research and through me," she said.

The dynamic, in other words, ran both ways. The showrunner researched Ali; the widow supplied what research can't. Think of it as a second trainer in the corner, correcting footwork the footage can't see.

What does this mean for the series?

The production is chasing authenticity down to the raised ink on a forearm, and the family's gatekeeper has signed on as collaborator rather than obstacle. That combination, a hungry unknown lead, a protective widow and a showrunner checking arm skin in the edit bay, suggests 'The Greatest' will stand or fall on the details Ali's own widow can't dispute.