Watch the First Trailer for the Whitney Houston Biopic 'I Wanna Dance with Somebody'
The greatest lives on.
The first trailer for the Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, has been released. The two-minute clip teases the “Whitney you never knew” and features footage from Sony’s upcoming biographical drama about one of the greatest voices of all time.
Naomi Ackie (“The End of the F***ing World”) stars as the legendary singer, alongside a cast that includes Ashton Sanders as Bobby Brown and Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis. Tamara Tunie plays Whitney’s mother, Cissy Houston, while Clarke Peters stars as Whitney’s father, John Houston.
The trailer documents Whitney’s rise from New Jersey choir girl to one of the best-selling artists of all time, with highlights from her career including the “How Will I Know” music video and her iconic performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XXV in 1991.
“My dream? Sing what I want to sing, be how I want to be,” Ackie’s Houston says in the trailer. “Reach as big an audience as I can.”
Ackie admits she was “very” nervous about taking on the iconic role. “She’s been elevated in my life for so long that it felt like an impossible thing to achieve at times,” she told PEOPLE. “The biggest challenge was letting my fear of the magnitude of this task take a back seat. Nothing good comes from sitting in fear for too long.”
I Wanna Dance With Somebody, which was directed by Kasi Lemmons (Harriet) and written by Anthony McCarten (Bohemian Rhapsody), hits theaters Dec. 21.