Sam Taylor-Johnson directs a devastating portrayal of Amy Winehouse’s meteoric rise to success and tragic death in Back to Black. The biopic takes an unvarnished look at her alcoholism, drug addiction, and toxic relationship with her eventual husband, Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell). Moreover, Marisa Abela delivers a star-making performance as Winehouse, in which she sings in her own voice and brilliantly captures the musician’s electric presence. You can watch our interview with Sam Taylor-Johnson and Marisa Abela above, or read it all below.

Why Marisa Abela Performs with Her Own Voice
Back to Black Back to Black is a biographical drama centering on the life of Amy Winehouse. The movie shows her rise to fame from a young age to adulthood and also covers her struggles with addiction. Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse, with Sam Taylor-Johnson directing the biopic.Release Date May 10, 2024 Director Sam Taylor-Johnson Runtime 2h 2m Writers Matt Greenhalgh Studio(s) Monumental Pictures , Le Studio Canal+ , Focus Features Distributor(s) Le Studio Canal+ , Focus Features

MovieWeb: Sam, what made you decide to have Marisa sing rather than lip-sync to Amy’s voice?

Sam Taylor-Johnson: Well, I think it was a tall order to find the right person in the first place as an actor to play this role. And to expect that they could sing like Amy Winehouse felt like a real tall order. So you know, we had lots of different ideas and methods of how we were going to make this work. But Marisa, all credit to her work ethic, just went off and trained and trained and trained. Initially, we were talking about how to train in terms of face movements and mouth movements, if we were to put in Amy’s music, how that would work.

Sam Taylor-Johnson: But it was clear as we went further down the process that Marisa was getting closer and closer and closer to actually being able to sing the entire movie, which she does. And it works so well because she’s emotionally engaged in a different way than if we had used the studio recording. There’s a different emotional connection. So it makes the movie, I think, connect with people in a much, much deeper level, with the lyrics, the words, and, yeah, it’s a huge responsibility.

Connecting with How Amy Winehouse Expressed Herself

MW: Was that daunting for you, Marisa?

Marisa Abela: Yeah, to echo Sam, I think it was incredibly important that it was never a prerequisite when I got the job. The most important thing was to feel that Sam felt Amy when I was working, and that if Sam could feel it, then maybe an audience could too. And then that really gave me the impetus to run ahead with the empathetic work that an actor does when they portray any role. Let alone someone who is as incredible and as huge a soul as Amy, but also as recognizable as Amy.

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Marisa Abela: But then with the singing, it just became something that I really wanted to get. Not only because it needed to be right for the film, but also because this is how she expressed herself. It’s a huge part of her personality for me as an actor to get on board with. Because she was a singer, so I wanted to know how to sing. And then, yeah, the more that I trained, the more it felt like a possibility.

Who’s to Blame for Amy’s Tragic Death?

MW: Back to Black presents us with difficult questions about Amy’s ex-husband, Blake. What do you want audiences to take away from the movie about what happened to Amy and how she was treated?

Sam Taylor-Johnson: Yeah, I think it was really important for me to make this film. I felt like her life had been so picked over during her life as well as opposed to her death. I felt like my responsibility was to go back to the music and to really sort of go to the lyrics and have those guide us through the movie. And Back to Black is one of the greatest albums ever. It’s all the love story between her and Blake. So our judgment doesn’t come into play in the sense that she loved him so painfully, and deeply, and felt that way.

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Sam Taylor-Johnson: The album comes from that love. So if we’re going into her perspective, we need to understand that and feel that, whether we like him or not, whether we have judgment around that. What she offers us is — people are flawed. People are shown humanity, I feel, through her love of him, of her father, or the people that we’ve watched in the documentary, as you know, who’s to blame. Often, I think, in scenarios of addiction, there isn’t necessarily one person to blame.

Marisa Abela: Yes [nods in agreement].

Sam Taylor-Johnson: And I think for me, it was really important to make this with no judgment, and just to be within her, her music, her soul, and who she loved. So it’s actually an easy answer for me.

Back to Black will be released theatrically on May 17th from Focus Features.