Houston biopic balancing act for star, director
Triumph, tragedy of singer’s life make it ‘really human story’
The fact that “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” star Naomi Ackie looks nothing like the subject of the film proved to be a distinct advantage for the actor and for the film’s director, Kasi Lemmons.
“When I got cast, I was like: ‘What?!’ Because I don’t look like Whitney at all,” said Ackie in a recent interview.
“At the same time,” she continued, “it gave me freedom to create a new version of something everyone knows. This film is an impressionist version of a real person. The thing I learned the most is that it was not about imitating someone to a ‘t’ and looking and talking exactly like them. It was having the freedom to share their essence, because there’s no one else like Whitney — and there shouldn’t be.”
In a separate interview, Lemmons readily agreed that Ackie, 30, bears little resemblance to Houston. The legendary singer was 48 when she died in February 2012 from a drug-fueled accidental drowning in the bathtub of a Beverly Hills, California, hotel.
Houston’s death came just a few hours before she was set to perform at the annual pre-Grammy Awards party hosted by music industry honcho Clive Davis, who guided Houston’s career almost from its inception. Her self-titled 1985 debut album yielded three No. 1 singles, including “How Will I Know” and “Saving All My Love for You,” and sold more than 25 million copies.
“The first thing I did when they approached me about (directing) this
movie is to say: ‘I want to see Naomi’s screen test,’ because she’d (already) been cast,” Lemmons said.
“When I did see it, I said: ‘OK, she does not look like Whitney.’ Still, there was some essence of Whitney that Naomi captured — Clive (Davis) could see it, the (Houston) family could see it — some spark that was ‘Whitneyesque.’ (That) kind of freed Naomi from doing mimicry and from trying to be the person Whitney was so exactly.”
Capturing on screen a life as well-chronicled as Houston’s is no easy matter. This holds especially true when that life has been the subject of a previous feature film (2015’s Angela Bassett-starring “Whitney”) and at least two documentaries (2017’s “Whitney: Can I Be Me?” and 2018’s “Whitney”).
Yet, even if those prior movies did not exist, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”
director Lemmons and star Ackie would have faced some formidable challenges in making their film, now in theaters.
First, they had to find a balance between the heady triumphs Houston achieved — as a music and film icon with a storybook-like rise to global stardom — and the soul-sapping lows she later endured. Those included drug addiction, clashes with her domineering father-cum-manager, financial problems, a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, and Houston’s closeted affair with her close friend, Robyn Crawford.
“Triumph? Tragedy? I think both those things about Whitney are right,” said Ackie.
“Yes, a triumph, but also sad. I think her human experience is something we can all look at and relate to. Well, maybe not all of it, not
selling 200 million records around the world! But the ups and downs that she had? I think everyone has had. It was a life, a full life with all those things.”
That combination of a heroic rise and devastating decline made Houston’s life almost worthy of a Shakespearean saga — a doomed heroine who inspired multitudes while battling demons from within and without.
“I look at every life as kind of Shakespearean because we all are very similar,” said Lemmons, who last year replaced Stella Meghie as the film’s director.
“We all hope and dream. We love our children. We struggle, we aspire and, sometimes, we fail. So look at Whitney’s story as a really human story.”
The music-intensive film features Ackie performing nearly two dozen songs, all but two of which feature
newly remixed versions of Houston’s original vocals. (After Ackie sang them for the filming, her singing was replaced by Houston’s.)
She nails the singer’s New Jersey accent so well that audiences seeing Ackie for the first time will have no clue she was born and raised in England.
The film “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” doesn’t dwell on Houston’s drinking or drug addiction. But it doesn’t gloss over them either, even if her four months of rehab seem to consist mostly of Houston briefly swimming laps in the pool at her mansion.
“I did a lot of research into addiction, what it does to the body, how it feels,” Ackie said. “I watched a lot of interviews about that and had the privilege to talk to Whitney’s family and people who knew her and worked with her outside of (her) addictions. … So, that was my way in (to the role), one of my ways in. There was a lot to take on.”
The screenplay for “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” was written by two-time Academy Award nominee Anthony McCarten. His previous credits include the 2014 Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything” and the 2019 Freddie Mercury/ Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Some of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody’s” scenes vividly re-create highprofile events in Houston’s life, including her bravura (albeit recorded) performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the 1991 Super Bowl and her stunning 1994 medley at the American Music Awards of “I Loves You, Porgy,” “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” and “I Have Nothing.”
Houston did not write a memoir. If she kept any diaries, they remain a secret. Where, then, does reality stop and poetic license begin in a film that includes many private conversations?
“Naomi and I both say this film is like a poem about Whitney. It’s not a documentary,” Lemmons said.
“It’s a movie that has emotional authenticity, even in terms of some of the dialogue, because we were working with people who remember the dialogue.
But it’s not a documentary. It’s not really Whitney.
“But it gives you Naomi’s beautiful performance and the essence of who this woman she portrays is, her triumphs and struggles. I think (there is) emotional truth and power to her performance as Whitney.”
What is the most and least Ackie hopes the film will achieve?
“The most is that people go and listen to Whitney’s music, enjoy it and reignite their love of Whitney. And the least is the same!” Ackie said.