Chasing Amy: How Marisa Abela became Amy Winehouse for 'Back to Black'

There’s no point asking Marisa Abela to sing Amy Winehouse songs at karaoke. Her friends have already tried and failed. But you can see her sing — and become — Winehouse in the new film “Back to Black,” which opens in the U.S. on Friday.

There’s no point asking Marisa Abela to sing Amy Winehouse songs at karaoke. Her friends have already tried and failed.

But you can see her sing — and become — Winehouse in the new film “Back to Black,” which opens in the U.S. on Friday.

Abela, best known for the sex, drugs and banking TV series “Industry,” did not want her performance to feel like a mere impersonation of the iconic British singer. She spent four months learning to sing in Winehouse's specific vocal style (two hours a day, five days a week), play guitar (one hour a day, three times a week) and move like her through “intense” physical training.

Abela immersed herself in Winehouse’s life and music until, she says, it was “annoying.” Deciding to give her flatmates a break from the sound of her guitar practice (“at the beginning everything sounded terrible”) or watching performances on a loop (“over and over and over again”), she relocated to Camden.

It’s the area in north London where Winehouse lived and died and where she is still much loved and remembered. Her image and music are everywhere.

“She was out and she was at pubs and at restaurants and, you know, singing when she shouldn’t have been sometimes. And also when she should have been,” Abela says.

“Back to Black,” directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, follows the experiences that led Winehouse to write the album of the same title. It shows her rise to fame from her debut album “Frank” to her triumph at the 2008 Grammys. Away from music, we see her Friday night family dinners and the heartbreak of her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil (played by Jack O'Connell).