The upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black has revealed the first few looks at Marisa Abela portraying the late icon. Abela, best known for playing Yasmin Kara-Hanani in HBO’s Industry, was chosen to play Winehouse in July after a highly competitive search. The official image released by HBO shows Abela looking like the spitting-image of Winehouse, donning gold hoops, her signature, oversized beehive hairstyle, tattoos and tiny beauty mark above her lip.
Photos captured on set, however, reveal a more candid pose, and have fans of Winehouse on social media questioning the casting decision — and whether a biopic should be made at all.
There have been several attempts over the years to tell Winehouse’s story with a biopic, but Back to Black is the first to get off the ground. The film is being made by Studiocanal, now in partnership with Focus Features and Monumental Pictures for its release. Sam Taylor-Johnson, who helmed 50 Shades of Gray and Nowhere Boy, about the childhood of John Lennon, is directing.
Notably, Back to Black also has the full support of the Amy Winehouse Estate. A 2015 A24 documentary, Amy, won an Oscar for its depiction of the Grammy-winning singer’s decline into addiction and eventual death from alcohol poisoning in 2011, but was infamously derided by Winehouse’s father for its depiction of him. According to studios, Back to Black will track “Amy Winehouse’s vibrant years living in London in the early aughts and her intense journey to fame.”
“My connection to Amy began when I left college and was hanging out in the creatively diverse London borough of Camden,” Taylor-Johnson said in a statement. “I got a job at the legendary Koko Club, and I can still breathe every market stall, vintage shop and street… A few years later Amy wrote her searingly honest songs whilst living in Camden. Like with me, it became part of her DNA. I first saw her perform at a talent show at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho and it was immediately obvious she wasn’t just ’talent’… she was genius. As a filmmaker you can’t really ask for more. I feel excited and humbled to have this opportunity to realise Amy’s beautifully unique and tragic story to cinema accompanied by the most important part of her legacy – her music. I am fully aware of the responsibility, with my writing collaborator – Matt Greenhalgh – I will create a movie that we will all love and cherish forever. Just like we do Amy.”
See the first images of Abela as Winehouse, below:
Source: W Magazine
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