Naomi Ackie pushed herself to the limit with her portrayal of Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
The 31-year-old actress played the late music icon in the 2022 biopic and admits that it changed the way she worked, as she was left exhausted by the part.
“That role pushed me to the edge, to the point where I was like, I have to change something otherwise I will shrink within this job, within this body, within the world.
“I was away from home, isolated in Boston for like seven months, and hungry – I lost about 30 pounds to get to the shape of Whitney.
“I lost a lot of myself, and not because of the art of it. It was to do with me feeling under pressure and trying to not be hated by the world – I was a catastrophic thinker, thinking I was never going to work again,” Ackie said in an interview with The Observer newspaper.
Ackie earned critical acclaim for her depiction of the “How Will I Know” singer but confessed that it left her at “rock bottom” and led to her rethinking her work-life balance.
“It got me to such a rock bottom that it was a wake-up call. A job cannot mean so much that it steals my life’s joy. I was like, ‘We’re gonna need to fix some priorities.’ ” she said.
Ackie recalled how she wanted to be an actress as a youngster in order to be famous but was urged to take the craft seriously by her mother.
“When I was younger, I was more attached to the idea of being famous. I wanted to be the best actor so I could go on a red carpet and do premieres — or be in Harry Potter.
“Mum was like, ‘Why would you want to be famous? You should be an actor if you want to act.’ She was very keen that I do it because I love it, that I study it, and that I become a master of a craft, but never aim for being a star for being a star’s sake,” the Blink Twice star said.
