CHICAGO—Jussie Smollett’s attorneys will build the bulk of their case starting Monday as they attempt to counter video, text and witness testimony from the prosecution alleging that the actor hired two men to pretend to attack him and lied about it to police.

One approach might be to put Mr. Smollett on the stand, said lawyers not involved in the case, a step many defense attorneys are often loath to take.

Mr....

CHICAGO—Jussie Smollett’s attorneys will build the bulk of their case starting Monday as they attempt to counter video, text and witness testimony from the prosecution alleging that the actor hired two men to pretend to attack him and lied about it to police.

One approach might be to put Mr. Smollett on the stand, said lawyers not involved in the case, a step many defense attorneys are often loath to take.

Mr. Smollett, who is openly gay, told police that he had been attacked by two men who used racist and antigay slurs, hit and kicked him and placed a noose around his neck at around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2019, as he walked home from picking up food at a Subway sandwich shop. He is charged with six counts of felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing false police reports, with each count carrying up to three years in prison. He has entered a plea of not guilty.

Late Thursday, prosecutors rested their case after several days of testimony centered on detective work, surveillance video and the accounts of two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who were originally considered suspects in the case but ended up becoming the prosecution’s star witnesses.

“‘Smollett has got to testify. He’s got to get up and tell his story.’”

— Andrew Weisberg, Chicago defense attorney not involved in case

The defense put on two witnesses before the trial adjourned for the night, including the emergency-room doctor who treated Mr. Smollett for cuts and bruises the evening of the alleged attack. Court was recessed Friday, leaving the defense’s case to resume Monday.

“Smollett has got to testify,” said Andrew Weisberg, a Chicago defense attorney and former prosecutor who isn’t involved in the case. “He’s got to get up and tell his story and try to convince the jury that this actually happened.”

Defense lawyers are often reluctant to put their clients on the stand for fear of opening them up to potentially damaging questioning from the prosecution. The strategy has been used a number of times in recent high-profile cases.

Defendants who have testified include Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of homicide charges in the killing of two people during unrest in Kenosha, Wis.; Travis McMichael, one of three men convicted of murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia; and Elizabeth Holmes, who is accused of wire fraud and conspiracy in connection with the collapse of the blood-testing company she founded.

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Former ‘Empire’ actor Jussie Smollett helped stage his own attack, Chicago police said. At a press conference in February 2019, it was explained how investigators came to that conclusion. Photo: Getty Images The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

In the Smollett trial, the prosecution spent days building a case that Mr. Smollett had enlisted the two brothers to stage the purported attack after he received a piece of hate mail that he didn’t think the producers of “Empire,” the hit show on which he starred, were taking seriously enough. Prosecutors tracked the movements of the Osundairo brothers using street cameras, ride-share receipts and other sources on the night of the alleged attack and documented numerous texts and phone calls between them and Mr. Smollett.

In one text presented at the trial, Mr. Smollett reached out to Abimbola Osundairo days before the alleged attack, saying: “Might need your help on the low. You around to meet up and talk face to face?”

In questioning the brothers on the stand, prosecutors posited that the only way they could have encountered Mr. Smollett at 2 a.m. at a particular spot on a night when the wind chill was below zero was if he had arranged the meeting.

In cross examination of the two brothers, the defense offered multiple possible alternative scenarios, including that they were seeking to scare Mr. Smollett into thinking he needed a security detail, which the brothers could provide. The defense also claimed the brothers told Mr. Smollett that they wouldn’t testify if he paid them $2.9 million. The brothers denied those allegations.

Abimbola Osundairo testified that he and Mr. Smollett were close friends. The defense countered by suggesting that he was Mr. Smollett’s drug dealer and that Mr. Smollett might have had a crush on him. They alleged that Mr. Osundairo used these roles to his advantage as he sought to advance his career. Mr. Osundairo denied the allegations, saying he was thankful to Mr. Smollett for his help in getting a better job on “Empire.”

Mr. Smollett’s testimony might be required to back up a number of these points, outside lawyers said.

“Most defense lawyers don’t like calling defendants as witnesses,” said Darryl Goldberg, another Chicago defense lawyer who isn’t involved in the case. “But I think this is a case where, based on what they’ve propounded in the cross examination, he’s the only one that’s going to be able to support that.”

Another alternative theory from the defense on display was positing that Olabinjo Osundairo was antigay and that the alleged attack was in fact a hate crime.

That strategy led to one of the most dramatic moments of the trial so far, with the defense attorney asking for a mistrial after the judge described her line of questioning about purported antigay tweets by Mr. Osundairo as a collateral matter in front of the jury.

Defense attorney Tamara Walker said the judge “physically lunged” at her when she suggested in a sidebar that she planned to move for a mistrial.

Associate Judge James Linn denied the motion for a mistrial. He also said that he hadn’t lunged at her. He said he was surprised that she would suggest a mistrial and immediately walked back to his seat on the bench after she made the suggestion.

All lawyers involved in the case have agreed not to speak with the media during the proceedings. Defense lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment. The lawyer for the Osundairo brothers said she was respecting the request of the court not to comment. The prosecutor said he was not commenting during the trial.

Write to Joe Barrett at joseph.barrett@wsj.com and Ben Kesling at benjamin.kesling@wsj.com