Stanley Tucci Said Clive Davis Approved of Tucci’s Performance As Him

• Stanley Tucci is playing producer Clive Davis in an upcoming Whitney Houston biopic.
• Davis himself is a producer on the upcoming film, called “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”
• Tucci told Insider that Davis told him he “couldn’t have been happier” with Tucci’s performance.

Stanley Tucci told Insider that Clive Davis, the legendary producer who Tucci is portraying in the upcoming Whitney Houston biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” texted him to give feedback on Tucci’s performance. 

Deadline reported in September that Tucci was slated to play Davis in the upcoming film, which stars Naomi Ackie (“The Rise of Skywalker,” “Master of None”) as Whitney Houston. Davis, a Grammy-winning producer who signed Houston when she was 19 years old and played an instrumental role on nearly all of her albums, is also a producer on “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” 

Tucci told Insider during an interview for his new AMC+ series “La Fortuna” that he didn’t have much time to prepare for playing Davis before heading to Boston for filming. However, he was able to speak with Davis over

Zoom

after reading Davis’ biography and watching the 2017 documentary “The Soundtrack Of Our Lives,” which is based on Davis’ biography and tracks his career.

Later, he spoke with Davis on set as well, and even received a supportive text message from the producer. 

“He said he watched the stuff we shot and sent me a text saying he couldn’t have been happier and that made me very, very relieved,” Tucci told Insider. 

“To me it was just about, again, if you’re playing a person who people know, not doing an imitation of him, trying to just find those aspects of him — physical, vocal, behavioral — that captured the essence of him,” Tucci said. “That’s the hardest part.”

Along with Tucci as Davis and Ackie as Houston, the film also stars Nafessa Williams as Robyn Crawford, Clark Peters (who Tucci recently worked with on “La Fortuna”) as Houston’s father John Houston, and Tamara Tunie as Houston’s mother Cissy Houston. Anthony McCarten (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) is writing the film’s screenplay, with Kasi Lemmons (“Harriet”) directing. 

Per Deadline, the Houston biopic is currently slated for release on December 23, 2022.