There are plenty of upcoming music biopics we could point to, but one that many movie lovers are eager to see in the United States is the film Back to Black. Marisa Abela went through serious training to portray Amy Winehouse and nail the iconic voice, but to her, it wasn’t just about singing—it was about discovering the truth about the singer.
I had the chance to talk to Marisa Abela, the actress portraying Winehouse, ahead of Back to Black and wanted to understand the process that she went through in order to become Winehouse for the role, including her vocal training. Abela told me that singing wasn’t even “required” of the role at first – she did it because she really wanted to know what it “feels like” to be able to sing out Winehouse’s music and understand the emotions behind it:
Thankfully, when I got the role, the most important thing that we shared was that the emotional truth of Amy and her psychological truth and her wants and desires and the feeling of Amy was the most important thing. So, it wasn’t a prerequisite that I sang. I wanted to take singing lessons, more to look like Amy when I was singing, to understand what was happening both physically and emotionally…I felt that it was important for me to know, really, what that feels like to be able to sing out music, especially that you’ve written yourself. But then I chose to take these lessons very seriously and I was training for four months, two hours a day, every day.
Starring Abela and directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, the film tells the tale of Amy Winehouse, her career rise and her personal struggles with alcohol and narcotics. While plenty of news and media companies have spoken on Winehouse, like her A24 documentary, there has yet to be a biopic like this about the famous artist until Back to Black.
There are plenty of musical biopics out there where the star willingly sings and truly immerses themselves in the role, but there are also plenty where the star doesn’t. In fact, one of Jennifer Lopez’s best movies, Selena, doesn’t feature the lead actress singing at all. Every musical piece in that film was from recordings of the late music artist Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.
However, Back to Black uses both original vocals from Abela and recordings of Winehouse’s music. Abela talked about how as she trained, her goal was to make sure that her recordings sounded “authentic” to Winehouse’s, and that it was more about discovering the “psychological and the emotional truth” behind each of the songs that we hear in the film:
I think that I just was coming closer and closer to a sound that felt authentic, not just in terms of like, “Oh my God, is that Amy or is that Marisa?” That wasn’t really the intention for me. It was more the psychological and the emotional truth behind singing these songs, that was so important to Sam [Taylor-Johnson] and me, and it felt that it would be such a shame if we were sort of keeping the emotional ball afloat, then went to sing, drop that ball. Because in the moments that we are singing in the film, it’s different to the studio recording. So if I’m singing at the Grammys and I’m singing ‘Rehab,’ it’s important to make sure that everyone in this room feels that Amy is back and that’s her intention, and there’s an intensity in that tension. It’s different to the studio recording of ‘Rehab.’ So it was a conversation, but as an actor, it feels right that you are able to tell the story at every moment in the film.
As a teenager, I found solace in Winehouse’s albums, and it’s heartening to see the passion behind the meticulous work to get these songs just right. For fellow fans of Winehouse, I believe the music in Back to Black will be a delightful reminder of her unique talent.
Back to Black is now playing in the United States as part of the 2024 movie schedule.