Amy Winehouse was one of the greatest artists of her generation and her impact on music still lives on. It does but now, Back to Black takes us all way back, way before her rise to fame, and then through it. DECOs Alex Miranda met the biopics soulful star in Hollywood.
Hey girls. Yeah, there was, there is no one like Amy Winehouse. She was the real deal. But the same troubles that inspired those hauntingly, heart wrenchingly, beautiful lyrics, some recorded right here in Miami, by the way, were the ones that cut her life tragically short.
Amy Winehouse
Marisa Abela (as Amy Winehouse): “I want people to hear my voice,”
…was an artistic powerhouse. And in Back to Black starring Marisa Abela…
Alex Miranda: “I don’t even know where to start. You were so brilliant.”
Marisa Abela: “Oh, thank you so much.”
The late singer’s signature spirit lives on.
Alex Miranda: There are so many Amy Winehouse-isms and you got them all. I mean, she moves her head. You know exactly what I’m saying?”
Marisa Abela (as Amy Winehouse): “From primary school…No, no, no.”
Marisa Abela: “It’s the feeling behind them. The essence behind all of these movements. Like why does she move like this? And if it’s in Frank, that kind of mood that you’re talking about, you know? It’s because she’s really feeling the music, but also what I learned, she’s often moving on the offbeat or like, on some weird jazz beat, she’s not just bopping along to the sort of like one, two of the things. She’s doing that like three, seven, nine, whatever it is.”
Alex Miranda: Cause she’s not a Spice Girl!”
Marisa Abela: “No.”
Marisa Abela (as Amy Winehouse): “You want to know what girl power means to me? Sarah Vaughn, Lauryn Hill. Need to Know this. I know Spice Girl.”
Marisa Abela: “She really wears her opinions on her sleeve. So, if she doesn’t like what you’re saying, like she’ll show you on her face. So that’s kind of what I needed to do.”
Director Sam Taylor Johnson also depicts that rocky marriage to Blake Fielder-Sybil, played by Jack O’Connell, and how it helped fuel her drug and alcohol abuse and manic depression. But she says this part of the story isn’t one note.
Alex Miranda: “Jack did also an incredible job and I will say that man, I started like this guy for a little bit. I was like, ‘Why? No! Stop.'”
Sam Taylor-Johnson: Humanize him and not just create this one dimensional villain. It would have made a mockery of her love and her lyrics and that sense. You know, Back to Black is a love story to Blake. So in order to make this film, I had to sit back and not have judgment, and she was obsessed with him and all her music was about the pain of their love.”
Marisa Abela (as Amy Winehouse): “I need to live my songs.”
Sam Taylor-Johnson: It’s a powerful love story, albeit a toxic one.”
Amy recorded part of her albums, Frank and Back to Black in Miami. She also got married to Blake in Miami Beach in 2007.
Alex Miranda: Miami plays an enormous role in her life. What did you know about how she felt about Miami?”
Marisa Abela: “You know, she created Frank in that place, like she conceived her first child, you know, in Miami, and I think that that becomes incredibly special for a person I mean, I’ve never been so I don’t know.”
Well. I invited her, she better come!
Grammy Award winning SoFlo producer Salaam Remi recorded those songs with Amy right here in Miami. She reportedly loved going to the old Cheesecake Factory in Coconut Grove and SoFlo’s Cuban restaurants.
Watch Back to Black in theaters, Thursday.
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