See the Amy Winehouse Biopic 'Back to Black' Cast Side by Side with Real People (2024)

Amy Winehouse’s life and world-changing music are getting the big-screen treatment in Back to Black.

Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by Matt Greenhalgh, the biopic — which debuts in theaters on Friday, May 17 — gets its name from the hit album that made Winehouse a superstar prior to her death at age 27 in 2011.

It stars Marisa Abela as the singer in “an unapologetic look at the woman behind the phenomenon and the relationship that inspired one of the most legendary albums of all time," per the synopsis from distributor Focus Features.

Who were the real-life figures in Winehouse's adult life, and who are the actors bringing them to the screen? Read on to see the Back to Black cast side by side with the people they portray.

Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse

Back to Black depicts Winehouse’s tumultuous rise from her early adult years in Southgate, London, to international fame. Playing the late singer-songwriter is Abela, 27, a British actress known for her work on the TV series Industry and COBRA.

Abela took on the daunting task of recreating the singer's iconic vocals herself rather than lip-syncing. “When you inhabit a character, you do what it is that you need to do,” she told PEOPLE at the film’s London premiere on April 8, adding that she was “really excited” for fans to hear her homage to the singer.

“That's my job as an actor, to inhabit her in every corner of her life and to be able to tell the story at every single moment of her life,” Abela said.

Jack O’Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil

Amid Winehouse's stratospheric rise, she became romantically involved with and eventually was married to Blake Fielder-Civil, now 42, from 2007 to 2009. Back to Black centers the ups and downs of their relationship, which included alleged drug abuse and violence.

In the movie, Fielder-Civil is portrayed by Jack O’Connell, the English actor known for starring in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken. “Both of them got a terrible time with the tabloid press," O'Connell, 33, said of the singer and her husband at the movie’s New York City premiere on May 15.

The couple "had their whole lives just spread out for everyone's consumption,” the actor said, adding that he considered Fielder-Civil to be “definitely very misunderstood… It was important for me to do some justice to that."

Eddie Marsan as Mitch Winehouse

An important figure in Winehouse's life both personally and professionally was her father, Mitch Winehouse. A handyman and taxi driver-turned-manager of his daughter’s finances, the 73-year-old, has since helped run the The Amy Winehouse Estate, which signed the deal to make Back to Black.

His 2012 book, Amy, My Daughter, which dubs him as the star's “closest advisor, her inspiration, and best friend,” revealed many of the highs and lows of the years depicted in the movie. The Oscar-winning 2015 documentary Amy, which covered the same period in the late musician’s life, did not meet his approval, The Guardian reported at the time.

Veteran actor Eddie Marsan, who has starred in British films like Happy-Go-Lucky and TV series including Ray Donovan, brings Winehouse's father to life in Taylor-Johnson’s movie.

Juliet Cowan as Janis Collins-Winehouse

Winehouse's mother, Janis Collins-Winehouse, is a former pharmacist who seperated and got divorced from her husband in 2009. Taylor-Johnson, 57, told PEOPLE that she met with both parents “out of respect" to the family.

"I was making a movie about their daughter, and I felt like it was important to hear them and hear their stories," said the director. "Some of the things that Janice, her mom, said really helped guide me."

Now 70, the Winehouse matriarch is played in the movie by Northern Irish actress Juliet Cowan, who is known for U.K. TV series The Power and Back to Life.

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Lesley Manville as Cynthia Winehouse

Among Winehouse's many influences as a singer and style icon were Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Lauryn Hill. But an inspiration she often cited was her father’s mother, Cynthia Winehouse, a jazz singer herself who reportedly encouraged her granddaughter to make the beehive hairdo part of her look. The singer went so far as to include her grandmother’s name among her many tattoos.

The grandmother's death in 2006 is among the momentous events portrayed in Back to Black, where she is brought to life by Oscar nominee Lesley Manville. The Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris star recently played Princess Margaret on The Crown.

Sam Buchanan as Nick Shymansky

Nick Shymansky was among the performer's first music managers, and it was during their time together between 1999 and 2006 that they released her hit debut album, Frank. In Taylor-Johnson’s movie, he’s played by Such Brave Girls star Sam Buchanan.

Other figures from the music world, such as Winehouse's American producer Mark Ronson, are only mentioned in Back to Black. In the case of Bennett’s presentation of the Record of the Year prize at the 50th annual Grammy Awards in 2008, real-life footage mixes with a recreation of Amy’s stunned reaction watching the American ceremony from back in London.

Back to Black is in theaters May 17.