Marisa Abela took on the daunting task of playing Amy Winehouse

IT might not be the most obvious address for a bona fide fast-rising film star, but a little flat above a shop was perfect for Marisa Abela.

The 27-year-old, who stars as Amy Winehouse in the new biopic Back To Black released tomorrow (Friday), told the New Journal that she was so determined to understand the singer she moved house to prepare.

“I lived on Kentish Town Road. It was really important for me,” she revealed.

“I knew the area because I had lived in Archway as a student, but I wanted to immerse myself as close to Camden Town as I could. It was great because it is full of life, full of different people – and when it isn’t touristy, it feels like a genuine eclectic mix of people.

“And for that reason, so many successful people live there. It is very loud, it is very noisy.”

The streets of Camden Town shaped Amy and Marisa could see how. As part of her preparation, she took herself on a few pub crawls of the area’s finest hostelries.

“Amy spent her life here. She could have lived anywhere,” said Marisa.

“There was a time when she was so successful, she could have chosen to live in a gated community or something – but she chose to stay in Camden, go to the same pubs, and I wanted to go to them.”

So Marisa soaked up how it felt, walking the same streets.

“Before we started filming, I was able to go into the Good Mixer or the Dublin Castle and get a real feeling of the places,” she said.

“That is what Amy did. There were people who she shot pool with, or drank with.”

Marisa’s role in the series Industry won acclaim, but she was close to doing something else entirely.

She was a student heading to University College London to study law, but instead, she swerved left on Gower Street and found herself in Rada instead.

Living in digs in Archway, it meant the Brighton-born and raised actor got a feeling for north London long before she had won the role, and was aware of Amy’s musical legacy.

“I really wanted to do the role,” she said. “I understood it would be Amy’s voice, and how she told her own story through her music.  It was so exciting to be part of something that was respectful of her in that way.”

Preparation for the film meant a four-month, two hour-a-day boot camp with singing and dancing coaches. She also spent hours studying film footage of Amy, to get her body shape and actions just right.

“It was a long old slog,” she admitted. “But I wanted to be able to sing as her so I could find her emotional story through her songs. That was her outpouring of how she was feeling, so it was really necessary to get into that place.”

She added: “I didn’t know how close I could get. I had to think about whether I could do it. Before I auditioned, I did a lot of work preparing. You have to apply real care and sensitivity with something like this – you either know you can do it justice or not. And it has to come from you or it can’t be fulfilled.”

Basing a film on the creativity that brought the world the Back to Black album helped Marisa get close to her state of mind. Amy’s emotions are there for all to listen to on an album which has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide.

“She wore her heart on her sleeve, the album encompassed so much,” Marisa added. “She wore her references for all to see.”

This cultural milieu straddled music, art, fashion and Marisa said that she had loved exploring how the singer, had given it all a contemporary twist, including the influence of 1960s girl groups.

“Her style was distinct but reverential. The scenes with [her grandmother] Cynthia, and how inspired she was by the Ronettes, was important,” said Marisa.

“She was so childlike about her appreciation of her heroes. She wanted to be a reinvention of them and then turn it into her own thing.”

There will be some devotees who will not be able to accept anybody playing their heroine in a biopic, and the lively fans forums have been discussing every aspect of the movie’s promotional trailer since it was released earlier this year.

But the rendition of Amy’s awesome stagecraft is uncanny.

“I would like people to take away a feeling of just giving her the respect she deserves, and what an artist she was,” Marisa added.

“The conversation around her is how sad it was, but the most important thing is to remember what a talent she was. That is what I am trying to do with this film. Give her back her music – and give her a big old round of applause.”