Eddie Marsan, who played the role of the abusive headmaster in Deadpool 2, is starring in the upcoming biopic of Amy Winehouse, Back to Black. There has been a lot of conversation around the film, and not all of it has been positive. Unfortunately, a lot has been done at the expense of Marisa Abela, who plays the role of Winehouse.
While many do not agree with her casting and have voiced it in a tame manner, sometimes the media can take it a step further and cross many lines. Recently, Marsan spoke about how the paparazzi took some extreme measures during the filming of the movie. The steps they took seemed to have had serious effects on Abela, and the Deadpool star is not happy about it.
Deadpool Star Was Protective Over Marisa Abela
Recently, Eddie Marsan gave an interview with IndieWire, where he talked about what it was like for him to work in Back to Black. He specifically talked about the lead actress, Marisa Abela. Even though she is fairly new to the industry, the actress bagged a very big role, playing one of the most iconic singers of all time, Amy Winehouse, in the documentary.
Despite her talent, there were many who criticized Abela’s casting in the role in the worst of ways. Even though the official pictures had not been released yet and the world did not know how good she looked in the film, the scrutiny around the project got very bad. So much so, that multiple people close to the project, as well as the singer, had to come out of the woodwork and defend her casting and the film itself.
“I could tell she was nervous. She’s only a young actor, and it was a massive part,” Marsan told.
During this interview, Marsan talked about this, mentioning that Abela was already nervous considering her lack of experience and the amount of attention the project would receive. The amount of criticism she was getting did not help in the very least. It would seem that the paparazzi also took a lot of advantage of the themes of the film, and it infuriated the Deadpool star quite a lot.
The Paparazzi Crossed Lines
In Back to Black, Eddie Marsan plays the role of Mitch Winehouse, Amy Winehouse’s father. In the interview, the actor revealed that as soon as production began, he and Marisa Abela got extremely close. Unfortunately, it would seem that the media took advantage of this.
“We had a bond straight away, and so it was terrible when we had to film scenes in London on location in Camden and Soho because even though we had a load of supporting artists playing paparazzi, the real paparazzi would sneak in.”
Since Winehouse also had a complicated relationship with the media when she was alive, there were a lot of actors who were playing paparazzi in the film. It would seem that real-life paparazzi took advantage of this fact and snuck onto the set. They would photograph moments on set and publish them online out of context. They would make headlines based on their own assumptions about the film, and this made the entire world think the same.
“They would take actual photographs of me and Marisa as Mitch and Amy. And then … within half an hour, it would be on social media and people would put up all these comments about the film about us and saying, ‘God, this is disgusting that they’re doing this.’ They hadn’t even seen the film.”
It is safe to assume that such treatment of a film dealing with a sensitive matter was enraging for those working on it. Marsan mentioned feeling the same, stating that it was frustrating to see the press make clickbait headlines for the sake of attention when they had no understanding of what the movie was doing in the first place.
Back to Black is releasing in theatres on May 17, 2024.
