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It's hard to believe that Sam Taylor-Johnson has spent the last week in bed with the flu. We meet in west London, in a health café that looks better suited to west Hollywood. There’s a menu packed with golden turmeric and a juicer the size of a small car, and everyone inside – including Taylor-Johnson – has that glow. ‘It happens after every film when you stop,’ she says. ‘This one has been one of those projects where there’s a sort of wind-at- your-back-feeling propulsion. I’ve been running alongside a high-speed train, try- ing to keep up with the energy.’
It’s the middle of February and Taylor- Johnson, dressed in an insouciantly cool uniform of denim and aviator glasses, is nearing the finish line of one of the most anticipated – and discussed – films of the year, Back to Black, a biopic of the late, great Amy Winehouse. ‘The turnaround has been so fast. Alison [Owen, the producer] approached me and said, “We have all the rights to the music and we’d like to make a movie. Would you be interested?” I was like, of course – it was a sort of golden ticket. That was less than two years ago.’
This will be Taylor-Johnson’s fourth feature. Having started her career as a visual artist, she broke out as a film- maker with another musician story, 2009’s Nowhere Boy. She then directed Fifty Shades of Grey and 2018’s A Million Little Pieces, based on James Frey’s controversial book on rehabilitation. ‘I feel like I’ve sort of run the gamut across the board. The first film was a low-budget indie, full of awe and wonder. The second film was a baptism by fire. The third film was a complete labour of love... And now this.’
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It was on set for her first film Nowhere Boy that she met her now-husband, actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson. The couple, who have been married for 12 years, split their time between Somerset and London with their four daughters (the two eldest are from her previous marriage to art dealer Jay Jopling). Does being almost finished with the film mean she can she take some down time? ‘I mean, there are never times where I’m doing nothing, with four kids. We also have 14 animals; there are cows, pigs, chickens, cats and dogs...’ She continues, ‘Aaron and I both like to constantly be on the go. We have that sort of need for constant chaos. In a fun way.’
As if on cue, a round of turmeric-root shots arrives and the conversation returns to Back to Black. The film follows Winehouse from her early days, before she was signed to her record label, to her creating one of the best-selling albums of our time. ‘I wanted the album to be the framework of the movie, as a sort of window into a particular moment in her life, and for it all to be through her eyes,’ Taylor-Johnson says. ‘To give her agency back, because it felt like it had been taken away. And to allow her to tell her own story and use the lyrics, her words, so it’s very much her perspective.’
Casting was never going to be easy, but when Taylor-Johnson met Industry’s break-out star Marisa Abela, she knew instantly they had found Amy. ‘I met eight girls, and she was the first one in. All of them, apart from Marisa, came in dressed as a version of Amy, even if it was just a big hoop earring or a cat eye, but Marissa came absolutely dressed as herself. She was timid and sweet and asked lots of questions. But then I turned the camera on, and she just looked up and engaged right with the middle of the camera, and I thought, “F*ck, it’s her.”’
The filming was demanding for every- one involved. ‘[It’s] the intensity of making a film about somebody who’s held in such high esteem, and so loved. There were days where I just found myself so sad. The scenes I was filming felt so desperately sad, to the core.’ And things were made harder by the constant press following the film. ‘I was trying to make sure the actor paparazzi weren’t infiltrated by real paparazzi. It was bizarre – we would look to our left and do a scene with paparazzi and then have real paparazzi on the right. It was this weird mirror reflection of life.’
Taylor-Johnson understands that with much interest comes judgement – of the people around Amy and the film itself. ‘Love is a good word around this project, because it feels like everyone came to it with so much love in terms of making it. And then everyone loved Amy, and it’s going into a world where people love, love, her,’ she says. ‘I felt like I was in service to her, and that it was important to tell the story. Not just to focus on the tragedy, which is there, of course, but for that not to be the only feeling. My ultimate goal is that people walk out on an uplift, thinking, “Let’s go listen to her music again,”’ she says as she prepares to meet Nick Cave and work on the film’s final score. And with that, Taylor-Johnson downs her golden latte, jumps on her bike, bag of cacao cookies underarm, and cycles off.
'Back to Black' will be released in UK cinemas on April 12, 2024.
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