I just sit back and think about how much of a blueprint that she’s been in my life and in my career, and so many others, you know?
So I feel as though that’s been a part of it… that led to me portraying her.
But it wasn’t until being in the thick of things that I got to even understand her that much more for myself as a person.
Not necessarily as, ‘Oh, my God as Aretha Franklin, the icon, or the voice or this or that song,’ but to be able to learn of the individual while developing the character …