Marisa Abela Nails It As Amy Winehouse In Back To Black Trailer

The life of Amy Winehouse is bound for the big screen this spring. 

Audiences got their first look at Back to Black, starring Marisa Abela, with the release of an international teaser trailer Thursday. 

The clip shows Abela as Winehouse in her signature beehive hairdo and heavy black eyeliner, commanding the stage at grimy nightclubs before becoming a global superstar.

I dont write music to be famous, she proclaims at one point in the trailer. I write songs because I dont know what Id do if I didnt.

Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, the biopic is billed as a never-before-seen glimpse at Winehouses rise to fame. The film is produced in partnership with the six-time Grammy winners estate. 

Told from Amys perspective, the film is an unapologetic look at the woman behind the phenomenon and the relationship that inspired one of the most legendary albums of all time, a synopsis for the movie states.

The film hits theaters May 10 in the U.S. 

Abela, a British native, is best known to U.S. audiences for HBOs Industry , in which she portrays Yasmin Kara-Hanani. She also appeared alongside Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in last summers blockbuster, Barbie . 

Taylor-Johnson, no stranger to rock n roll biopics after 2009s Nowhere Boy , said Abela immediately inhabited Winehouse at her first audition. 

Watch the trailer for Back to Black below. 

Marisa came in as Marisa absolutely no cat-eye makeup or anything, the filmmaker told Empire in an interview published Thursday. She was very sweet and very quiet. And then I turned on the camera, and she looks down the lens, and literally, we all just went, What?!

She added: Wed seen some brilliant impersonations. But [Marisa] managed to just bring every fibre of her being in alignment with who Amy Winehouse was, and is to many people.

A London native, Winehouse released her debut album, Frank , in 2003. Her global breakthrough came three years later, when she unveiled her second album, Back to Black , which featured the smash single Rehab. 

Winehouses musical achievements, however, were soon overshadowed by her experiences with drug and alcohol addiction. She died of alcohol poisoning in 2011 at the age of 27. 

As of Thursday afternoon, the Back to Black trailer had received a mixed response online  and many of those doubts may be justified. Recent celebrity biopics, including 2018s Bohemian Rhapsody and 2022s Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody , have too often failed to offer a satisfying level of behind-the-scenes insight into their era-defining subjects.

In her Empire interview , however, Taylor-Johnson said her film gives Winehouses agency back. 

I think it feels true to her and thats really the point of making the film, to be true to her, to her music, and to her soul, she said.