This January, audiences will have the chance to remember and relive Whitney Houston and her incredible voice in theaters with the release of “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Directed by Kasi Lemmons, written by Academy Award® nominee Anthony McCarten (“Bohemian Rhapsody”), produced by legendary music executive Clive Davis, the music biopic will provide Whitney fans with previously unknown insight into the icon’s life and work. It is both a celebration of the triumphs of her life and a clear-eyed look at the tragedies that took her from us far too soon.

“There’s a celebration to be had about Whitney,” says BAFTA winning actress Naomi Ackie (Netflix’s “End of the F*cking World,” “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker”), who embodies the icon in the film. “We can look back now and know that there was no one else like her. It’s been over a decade and there’s still no one else like her.”

In the following interview, Ackie talks about the herculean task of portraying Whitney, her favorite song performance in the film, and why it’s necessary to show not only the joy in Whitney’s life, but also the tragedy.

Q: Why did you want to take on the challenge of playing the iconic Whitney Houston?

Naomi Ackie: I've never applied my style of work to how to inhabit someone that everybody knows. So that was terrifying and attractive at the same time; to figure out artistically how to balance playing a real person but also representing an emotional world at the same time and figuring out which gives to which at any specific point. So that negotiation was both enticing but also extremely terrifying . I think also one of those things I was so aware of was how many people they were auditioning. I was so aware of the giant search that was going on that by the time it got to the point where they were like, “Okay, we're giving you the honor of portraying Whitney,” I couldn't say no at that point. It was like, who am I, little old Nay, to say no to an opportunity to stretch myself in that way.

Q: You must have done a lot of research – what was your “in” into playing her and understanding Whitney as a person?

Naomi: There are so many different avenues. When you are playing someone real, when you collect all the information and the data and the videos and the songs, you can build up a narrative of a person through their different mediums of how they communicate. I would learn different things about how she holds herself and presents herself to the public through how she performs or when she's in interviews. Her inner world was reflected in the books I read about her, and talking to her family members, and then somehow stitching that together to find her. At the very least, my main goal was to make Whitney as multifaceted as possible – letting go of the idea of being exactly like her and moving in the exact same way and looking exactly like her – but to capture the essence of her.

Q: In the film, we see the joy in Whitney’s life, but we also see the tragedy. It just reminds you again of her life cut short. What do you take from her story?

Naomi: This is the first time I've ever led a film; this is the first time I ever filmed in the States, this is the first time I'd ever played a real person, and I was very overwhelmed with the amount of pressure I felt. Not only to play Whitney Houston, but the responsibility of being the person who sets the tone on a set, and my work ethic, and the risk that people are taking in hiring me in the first place. Reading up on Whitney's experience, being that to so many people, I couldn't help but feel this strong, strong sense of empathy.

I look at her life, and her coping mechanisms, and how she handled people and her quality of performance over the years, and what came to me was a real need for balance. There has to be balance in these kinds of jobs. There has to be a way for you to be kinder to yourself, and to relinquish some of that responsibility because it seems to me that someone who has such high expectations placed upon her, that that could break anyone. And so that's what I took away for myself. Yes, stay with the work ethic. Yes, always strive to be better. Yes, use the gift that God gave me but also, how am I filling my cup? How am I looking after myself? When do I need a break?

It’s so funny, I was just talking to my dad about this exact thing, of needing a break and trying to figure out how to do that. Kindness. Kindness to yourself and kindness to others. It’s a weird thing, isn't it? Because I think the film is sad, it's dramatic irony. We know what happened to Whitney, who is a hero to so many of us, but that does not take away from her art that she left behind. It doesn't take away from the story that she was telling through her songs. That will always live on forever. There's hope in that, too, for me, especially as an artist. Whatever happens to me – and anything could happen to any of us – the things I make and create that affect people will still live on. That is also a beautiful lesson that I've taken away from this project.

Q: The film lets us really relish in the songs. Talk me through that process for you, of singing sometimes and other times having to match yourself up with Whitney’s voice. What was that like?

Naomi: When I first signed on, I was like, “Whitney’s singing everything, right? ‘Cause that's what's happening!” And as we went on, we discovered that I don't sound like Whitney at all, but that I have a similar vocal range, especially the mid-vocal range stuff. So, as we proceeded, I kept asking, “We have a voice double, right?” John Warhurst was like, “No, it's gonna be you.” And I was like, “What?” I would take singing lessons. I went to the studio when we first got to Boston, and we went through all the songs that are in the film – all those songs I have sung to, and that was to make sure that we had enough, if John Warhurst wanted to play around with mixing our voices or breaths. I think we found a really good medium where when she's much younger in the film is where I sing, and as soon as she steps into her own, we hear Whitney's voice, which is what we ultimately want to hear . And we leave it off from there, and we just follow with her voice, and her voice as part of the storytelling. The singing was probably one of the most terrifying things. I always felt a little bit better when I could just hear her voice really, really loudly, and I couldn't hear my own. It was always easier to play than hearing my own thin voice that isn't the same.

Q: Do you have a standout song or favorite experience out of doing all those music videos and song performances?

Naomi: My faves, I've got so many. I think my top two were I Will Always Love You and I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Those were just really fun days, too. It was playing with a real band and then an audience there that no choice but to cheer you on. It was really lovely, and again, I got a better understanding of how addictive it must feel to be a musician and be one voice that is able to affect so many people emotionally. It must be amazing. I have so much respect for musicians, big and small, to be able to hold a room in that way. It's a stunning thing and it was addictive for me to feel. That's why I say those performance days were easier than acting days for me because it was just a joyful feeling, being able to entertain people in that way.

Q: It’s been a decade since we lost her, and after all this time, what does she mean to you, personally?

Naomi: When I was younger, obviously her music was always around the house. I didn't know this at the time, but she produced the Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. I watched that when I was about five or six years old, and my dad had recorded it on VCR, and it was one of the first times I fell in love with musicals. It was that and Cats, and Mulan, and West Side Story, and Grease. I was watching all this stuff that made me want to be a performer. That is part of my makeup.

I go on this whole journey, from being a child to now 31 years old, and I still love it and I still want to tell stories and I still want to make other people feel that way, and she's a part of that.

For me to then be able to play her is full circle moment, and hopefully I can continue with that energy. Whitney has been a catalyst at different points in my life, and I didn't even really realize it.

With this film, it feels like another catalyst to continue to tell stories, continue to expand in how I can create a platform for other people, and continue to just try and bring as much joy and feeling to the world. Especially because we're in really hard times, and, when we're in hard times, stories are the best way for us to chill for a second before getting down to the work of fixing things.

(“Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” opens exclusively in cinemas across the
Philippines on Sunday, Jan. 08, 2023.)