- Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse in Sam Taylor-Johnson's new film "Back to Black."
- Abela spent four months taking singing lessons with a vocal coach.
Marisa Abela embodies late music icon Amy Winehouse in the new biopic "Back to Black," and yes, the actor really sings in the film.
Abela, known for her role on the TV series "Industry," doesn't just wear Winehouse's signature beehive, heavy black eyeliner, and stilettos in director Sam Taylor-Johnson's biopic. She also spent months learning to sing, play the guitar, and move like Winehouse.
Here's how Abela transformed her voice for "Back to Black" — and why the film controversially uses her vocals instead of Winehouse's.
Abela wasn't a trained musician prior to 'Back to Black'
"Back to Black" features several tracks from Winehouse's debut album "Frank" as well as her titular sophomore album. During the audition process, Abela, who had only one singing class in acting school, told Taylor-Johnson that she wasn't a particularly skilled singer.
Abela got up to speed through the help of dialect coach Jamie Matthewman, vocal coach Anne-Marie Speed, movement coach Sarah Green, music producer Giles Martin, and guitar tutor Ben Parker.
In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Abela said she approached singing lessons to play Winehouse with a desire "to do right by her emotionally."
According to the "Back to Black" production notes, Abela took two-and-a-half-hour singing lessons every day for four months. Martin also worked closely with Abela to replicate Winehouse's distinct vocal style.
"I don't think any of us were 100% sure at the very beginning how much we were going to be using my voice... but it was so important to me to do everything I could to pour myself into this role," Abela said in the press notes.
The decision to use Abela's vocals instead of dubbing in Winehouse's wasn't made lightly
Prior to the film's release, people online criticized Abela's vocals, with some calling the performance a "parody" of Winehouse. But the decision to use the actor's voice rather wasn't taken lightly — and there's a reason Abela doesn't sound exactly like Winehouse.
"I never wanted the performance to feel like an impersonation," Abela told Nylon. "I wanted it to feel like I was in touch with her soul."
"You try to identify the key features in the sound so that when you listen to it, it reminds you very, very strongly of Amy Winehouse, but it isn't an impression and that's a really important distinction," Speed said in a featurette for the film.
In the production notes, Taylor-Johnson said that she initially didn't intend to use Abela's vocals "because Amy's voice is incredibly distinctive and incredibly familiar and so hard to emulate."
"I always had the idea in my head that if she couldn't do it, I could dub her with Amy's voice, but one day she sang for the music producer Giles Martin and myself, and I said to him, 'I think she can do it. I think she can sing the entire movie,'" Taylor-Johnson told Nylon. "It was incredible."
After being impressed with Abela's vocals, the director felt that it was more authentic to the film to keep the actor's voice.
"I think if we'd have dubbed Amy's voice, there would have been a disconnect emotionally," Taylor-Johnson said in a featurette.
Abela shared similar reasoning with The Hollywood Reporter. "The story we're telling is through this music," she said. "So it would feel so disappointing to do all of the emotional work for a scene and then get to the singing and open my mouth and cut to a track that has an emotional disconnect because it is recorded in the studio."
"Back to Black" is in theaters now.