Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, and Lesley Manville join the cast of Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, the film starring Marisa Abela entered production earlier this week
After Focus Features shared the first look at Marisa Abela in costume as Amy Winehouse in Back To Black, more cast members have been confirmed for the biopic, which went into production in London earlier this week. As reported by Deadline, Jack O’Connell stars as the late singer’s ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, Eddie Marsan will be playing her father Mitch Winehouse, and Lesley Manville is set to appear as her maternal grandmother.
In the tabloid circus that surrounded Winehouse up until her death in 2011, Fielder-Civil and Mitch Winehouse emerged as particularly contentious figures in the chart-topping artist’s circle as she struggled with addiction and disordered eating. Later on, the elder Winehouse said that the 2015 documentary Amy was “trying to portray [him] in the worst possible light” and dismissed the Oscar-winning A24 release as “a negative, spiteful and misleading portrayal of Amy.” Mitch Winehouse was previously the subject of his own documentary, My Daughter Amy, as well as writing a memoir titled Amy: My Daughter. He and Amy’s mother Janis released their documentary take Reclaiming Amy in 2021 after announcing that they would be producing a biopic about their daughter back in 2018. Noomi Rapace was previously considered to star in an unauthorized version.
Back To Black is being directed by Fifty Shades Of Grey’s Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by her Nowhere Boy collaborator Matt Greenhalgh. The film has the full cooperation of the Amy Winehouse estate, which Mitch Winehouse serves as administrator of, as well as Universal Music Group and Sony Music Publishing.
O’Connell first broke out in 2009 as part of the cast of Skins and went on to star in films including Starred Up and Unbroken. Most recently, he was seen in the war series SAS Rogue Heroes and the Netflix adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Marsan has appeared in projects like The World’s End, Happy-Go-Lucky, and Ray Donovan. He regularly collaborates with Guy Ritchie and will next be seen in the director’s Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre.
Manville received an Oscar nomination for her role in Phantom Thread. Last year, she gave one of The A.V. Club’s top 25 film performances in Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris, as well as portraying The Crown’s latest iteration of Princess Margaret.