Marisa Abela was on her way to Ibiza with friends when her agent called to give her the news that she was cast as Amy Winehouse in the biopic Back to Black. While her friends cheered and raised a glass to celebrate Abela felt the daunting task ahead start to sink in. Winehouse’s beehive hairdo, cat-eye mascara, towering shoes, and inimitable voice make her a unique and difficult performer to emulate. In an interview with NME, Abela said, “Then the whole journey to Ibiza, I was like, ‘Err…?!’ Err is right. There are few singers as talented or well-known as the beehived queen of Camden Amy Winehouse. Even now, nearly 13 years after her death, the iconic on-stage look plus that inimitable voice, make her as unique and impossible to copy as Beyoncé or The Beatles. Where do you even begin?”
The film, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, opens on Winehouse’s teenage years spent scribbling song lyrics and getting up to mischief in north London before moving onto her sensational rise to pop icon, struggles with fame and the heartbreaking relationship leading to her greatest works. The role dominated Abela’s life for two years, with intensive auditions to a shoot that saw her go head-to-head with a cast of well-known British actors including Oscar nominee Lesley Manville and BAFTA-winning Jack O’Connell. General rehearsals took place at Abbey Road Studios with Abela performing two of Winehouse’s most challenging songs. “I did two hours of singing a day, five days a week,” says Abela. “I learned how to play guitar… And then I’d come home for a Zoom with my accent coach.”
Amy’s favorite haunts include unpretentious pubs and venues such as The Hawley Arms and The Good Mixer where they’re just as likely to meet a penniless busker as to Liv Tyler, Alex Turner, or Gwyneth Paltrow. To get the feel for the place and the singer, Abela visited them, experiencing the atmosphere of being “in Camden. Those places are exactly the same as they were then,” she said.
Asked about her best experience playing the iconic late singer and what they had in common, Abela said growing up in East Sussex, near Brighton, she was raised in a single-parent household and was Jewish, as was Winehouse. She said they both “had a desire to be seen and heard… by a slightly more absent parent.” This led each to rebel against the present parent, says Abela. “Amy craved boundaries but [also] resisted them… For me, it was about getting to that version, that younger Amy who was driven to suck the most out of life that she possibly could.”
Back to Black is in cinemas, and Marisa Abela’s spot-on performance is getting rave reviews from fans and critics alike.
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