Deborah Cox is revealing how she ended up as “the voice” of the legendary Whitney Houston in her 2015 biopic.
During the Wednesday, April 8, episode of the “What Matters with Liz” podcast with Woman’s World Editor-in-Chief, Liz Vaccariello, Cox, 51, recalled how director Angela Bassett reached out to her for the Lifetime Whitney Houston biographical film, Whitney.
“She was the one that called me and said, ‘I’m working on this project. Would you sing the music?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely,’” Cox shared. “That was the only day that I had off ’cause I was on another project. So I literally flew from Miami to LA, recorded the songs, and we did it.”
“In a day we cut, like, six songs,” Cox continued.
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Cox also shared how hands-on Bassett was during the filming process.
“Under her direction, she was just like, ‘This is the moment. This is what’s happening,’” Cox said of Bassett, 67, explaining the plot to her during big musical moments like “I’m Every Woman” or “I Will Always Love You,’” adding that the goal was to nail the “essence” of Houston’s voice.
“And I think, as a performer, you find little areas of a person’s voice that really resonate with you and that’s what’s inspired me all these years,” Cox explained.
Cox said she knew “very early on” that singing was what she was meant to do.
“I knew when I was singing along to songs on the radio, commercial jingles. I had an affinity for melodies. You know, certain things would just stick with me,” she shared.
Some of her early influences included Billie Holiday, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin and Dinah Washington, all of whom her mother would play in the house as she was growing up. Cox discovered Houston later in life, and knew that she “wanted music to be a career.”
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In 1994, Cox signed with Clive Davis, the famed award-winning producer and music executive who shaped careers of artists like Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys and Houston. In 2000, Houston and Cox collaborated on the duet “Same Script, Different Cast.”
“It’s interesting ’cause it’s not until you go through life when you look back you go, ‘Wow, there’s certain patterns that happen and certain synchronicities that happen as well,”’ Cox told Vaccariello. “And I found that to be very interesting.”
Houston died on February 11, 2012, of an accidental drowning in her hotel bathtub, while under the influence of cocaine and other drugs.
Cox, meanwhile, is currently starring as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” in Titanique, a musical parody of the hit 1997 film Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Titanique features an exclusive score of Céline Dion songs. She also appeared as Glinda in The Wiz and as the titular character in Aida.
