Back to Black's Eddie Marsan says it's "not a riposte" to Amy documentary
The actor stars in the new biopic as Mitch Winehouse – who was publicly unhappy with how he was portrayed in Asif Kapadia's 2015 documentary.
Eddie Marsan has explained that new Amy Winehouse film Back to Black is "not a riposte" to Asif Kapadia's Oscar-winning 2015 documentary Amy.
Marsan has a key role in the biopic as Winehouse's father Mitch, who was publicly unhappy about the way he was portrayed in the aforementioned film, and subsequently played a part in a separate documentary titled Reclaiming Amy in 2021.
But speaking during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, Marsan explained that those documentaries did not factor into the new film.
"This is not a riposte to the documentary at all - the documentary is its own thing, and it's [Kapadia's] own narrative," he said.
"But one thing I've realised in the making of this film, is that when someone like Amy dies, somebody who's touched our lives in such a profound way, and it's kind of like a member of our family – because we hear her voice every day, when we're driving the kids to school or when we're cooking the Sunday dinner or whatever...
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"When someone dies so young and so tragic[ally], there's a collective trauma. And the way we deal with trauma is to make sense of it and to create a comfortable narrative that we can latch on to."
He added: "The comfortable narrative for this kind of trauma is to find someone to blame – because it's reassuring to find someone to blame. Because if my daughter doesn't meet someone like Blake [Fielder-Civil, Winehouse's ex-partner], or if you don’t behave the way they say Mitch behaved, then it won't happen to us.
"But addiction doesn't work like that, addiction is arbitrary. It's random. It's cruel, and it's chaotic. And so, what I hope will come out from this film is that people will have more compassion for people with addiction and their families.
"That's what I hope this film comes out with, and also a celebration of Amy."
Read more:
- Eddie Marsan: 'I wouldn't do Back to Black if it sanitised Mitch Winehouse'
- Dev Patel says Monkey Man is "a Trojan horse and a gateway drug"
Marsan had previously explained during an interview with Radio Times magazine that he would not have signed up for the film if it "sanitised" Mitch Winehouse or if it "demonised" him.
Back to Black was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and stars Industry's Marisa Abela as Winehouse, while the supporting cast also includes Jack O'Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil and Lesley Manville as Amy's grandmother Cynthia.
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Back to Back will land in cinemas in UK and Ireland on Friday 12th April 2024. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.
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