Whitney Houston’s life was as tragic as it was triumphant. Blessed with one of the most powerful voices of her generation, she sold millions of records worldwide and received numerous awards and accolades throughout her career. But the singer and actress was plagued with personal problems, from her turbulent marriage to fellow pop star Bobby Brown, to the spiral into drug addiction that led to her untimely death aged just 48.
“Perfectionism is a dangerous thing,” she says. “I think there is this kind of struggle about being a people pleaser when you’re a performer. The biggest thing for me was going, ‘OK, once you’re 70% there with the accent and once you’re 70% there with the body and 70% there with the character work, the rest of it can’t be perfect. It shouldn’t be perfect.’”
“I’ve always had a bit of stage fright when it comes to singing,” admits Naomi, who says she doesn’t have Whitney’s “top range” vocally. “It’s something that I dealt with in Whitney because I did have to sing at some points. And learning to own my voice and own my singing voice has been a real journey since I was little. I find it very hard to sing in front of people I know.”
The actress immersed herself into the role so deeply that some of Whitney’s characteristics even started to manifest themselves in her own day-to-day life. “I finished Lady Macbeth and nothing happened,” she remembers. “I went back to my normal side job. I was like, ‘Oh, I thought I just did an amazing thing.’ I was really down, I was really broke, I was really frustrated.”