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Tag: Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

  • Naomi Ackie Stuns in “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”

    BAFTA-winning British actress Naomi Ackie (Netflix’s End of the F*cking World, Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker plays the title character in Columbia Pictures’ Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody  (in Philippine cinemas starting Sunday, January 8).

    Watch the film’s latest trailer below.

    “I don’t even know how to describe it – Whitney has just always been there, always so present in my life,” Naomi Ackie says. “Every wedding, every funeral, every christening, birthday, karaoke, when I’m on my own, when I’m with friends. I can’t even remember the first time I listened to her music – that’s not even part of the conversation. She’s just always present.”

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    Naomi Ackie in TRISTAR pictures I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY

    Because of that, when Ackie got the call inviting her to audition, she says, she was overwhelmed by the idea of playing the icon – until everything fell into place. “I was immediately intimidated by even attempting to try it. It was just terrifying. Every time I had another round of auditions and it got closer, it still felt strange,” she says. “And then, for the final audition – it was Halloween, I was in full costume as Whitney, with the suit and the hair, singing ‘I Will Always Love You,’ and something just clicked. I suddenly understood – I could tell this story.”

    Naomi Ackie

    The thing that clicked for Ackie is a stripping away of the legend and a focus on who Houston was as a performer. “She just wanted to sing,” says Ackie. “I understand that, because I have the same thing – with acting. It doesn’t get much more complicated than that. I also saw that she could be a goofball and be very silly, like me, and combine that with a real respect for her craft and a technical ability, which is always my goal, too.”

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    For Ackie, playing Whitney Houston was something of a life-changing event. “There was a power in playing Whitney that I didn’t anticipate,” she says. “I’m not a take-it-home-with-you kind of actor. Between ‘action’ and ‘cut,’ I’m all feelings, and I leave it at the door. But with Whitney, it was something different. I stepped into my own power in a way that I hadn’t been asked to do before. I wasn’t just playing Whitney Houston anymore.”

    Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.  Connect with the hashtag #IWannaDanceMovie

  • From the Creative Team of “Bohemian Rhapsody” Comes “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”

    “We sought to make Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody a rich, beautiful, moving, and very human tribute to a great talent – one of the greatest we will ever see,” says director Kasi Lemmons, who helms the film, joining forces with much of the creative team that brought the worldwide hit Bohemian Rhapsody to the screen, including screenwriter/producer Anthony McCarten. “She has a complicated story, in the way that all humans are complicated. We can relate to her and the struggles she went through, the pressures she faced, and we get to understand her.”

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    The film began when legendary music executive Clive Davis had a chance meeting with screenwriter/producer Anthony McCarten, fresh off the worldwide success of the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. “Over dinner in a New York restaurant, Clive proposed I consider Whitney as my next film project, promising that he could facilitate the introductions to the Houston estate that would be necessary to unlock access to the music, without which no story about a musician is worth undertaking,” says McCarten. “At first, I wasn’t sure there was a fresh, untold story of Whitney to be had, but the next day, Clive showed me a video of Whitney performing the ‘Impossible Medley,’ and I saw what the movie could be.”

    McCarten was, of course, astounded to be reminded of the master class in voice control that is Houston’s performance at the 1994 AMAs. But he was concerned about presenting Houston’s story as a biopic. Isn’t Whitney Houston’s story a tragedy? But after a second meeting with Davis, McCarten turned his thinking around. “If we only judge artists by how long they live, Shakespeare’s life is a tragedy,” McCarten says. “Whitney’s life is a triumph. She gave us these extraordinary moments, these great performances. That story has not been told.”

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    And if there is a theme that runs through Houston’s work – a theme that provides a natural narrative arc for the film – it is the idea of the search for family, the search for home, the yearning for the deep connection that comes with love and affection – the Whitney Houston who deeply wanted to dance with somebody who loved her. “She’s just a girl from the neighborhood who wants to be loved, wants to have a home, wants to have people who care about her and love her, and wants to share her talent with the world,” says producer Jeff Kalligheri. That’s what we hear in her music, and that’s what she’s searching for in her life.”

    In cinemas across the Philippines starting Sunday, January 08, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.  Connect with the hashtag #IWannaDanceMovie

    Photo & Video Credit: “Columbia Pictures”