Marisa Abela talks about how she came to play the role Amy Winehouse In Back to black.
The 27-year-old actress recently sat down on the roof of a double-decker bus in London with ET’s Nischelle Turner to talk about the upcoming biopic and how she changed everything from her voice to her body to get through “rehab.” to portray a singer.
“I mean, like any other transformation, like physical or vocal,” she said of her approach to losing weight for performing. “It was necessary. I think for me it was a part of her life, this addiction and her struggles and an eating disorder. Which is very real for a lot of people.”
wine House died in July 2011 at the age of 27 and the cause of death was determined to be alcohol poisoning. The singer’s brother, Alex, has claimed in the past that he believes her struggles with bulimia also contributed to her death.
In 2013 he spoke to The guard about his sister’s death and shared his suspicions that the eating disorder was as much to blame as Winehouse’s problems with alcoholism.
“She suffered very badly from bulimia. “It’s not a revelation – you knew it when you looked at her… She would have died at some point the way she behaved, but what really killed her was bulimia,” he said.
According to the Cleveland ClinicBulimia nervosa is the constant eating and purging of food with the aim of losing or maintaining weight. The condition can be fatal if left untreated.
For Abela, it was equally important to portray Winehouse’s physical attributes as well as her struggles with alcoholism, drug abuse and an eating disorder Control her voice.
“She was who she was, and having less of yourself, physically, makes a real difference in how you interact with the world and how the world interacts with you,” Abela said. “I felt like it was really important for me to stay true to her physical journey.”
While her physical transformation was paramount, the ability to sing like the six-time GRAMMY Award winner was high on Abela’s priority list. In fact, she told ET that the cast and crew didn’t know whether or not they would mix her own voice with Winehouse’s until later in the filming process, which made things all the more stressful.
“I think it was really important for me to learn to sing like Amy as best I could,” the Brighton, England-born actress shared. “It was never a sure thing that they would definitely use my voice and only my voice, but I thought, ‘Why don’t I train as hard as I can so that it at least looks and feels like that?’ [real].’”
She added: “I wanted to feel like her when I sang.”
Ultimately director Sam Taylor Johnson decided to leave Abela’s voice in there to be heard the first trailer that was withdrawn both in January and in the year a clip that was later released, in which the actress sang Winehouse’s “Stronger Than Me.”
Watch the trailer Back to black in the player below:
What she will take from the role, the former HBO series Industry says Winehouse taught her so much about the world and herself, as well as how to approach life in general.
“The lessons I learned from her will certainly stay with me always, like any experience in life,” she said. “I learned so many amazing things from her, like how to be fearless, brave and be yourself.”
Back to black hits theaters on May 17th.
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