Teyana Taylor Says She's Working on a Dionne Warwick Biopic

As first reported by Billboard, the 32-year-old actress, singer, and dancer confirmed that she is planning to play legendary singer Dionne Warwick in a forthcoming biopic. The "Morning" singer has always looked the part, but she says she wanted to wait until she was able to dive fully into the character.

"We’re already working on it, we're in the building process right now," Taylor told interviewer Tamron Hall, in a new clip from the Tamron Hall Show shared exclusively with Billboard. "I always wanted to make sure I could lock in with any person that I would be playing."

As part of the process of learning about Warwick, Taylor is working directly with the 82-year-old icon, who she says she talks to everyday. "I’ve always been a firm believer and stood on safety," Taylor said of the collaboration. "She’s had a wonderful career, and I think right now is about making her feel as safe as possible to tell her story because a lot of these stories get misconstrued or dramatized to an extent. That’s not really where we want to go.”

The upcoming role comes at a fitting time for Taylor, who is recently earning critical acclaim for her most high profile role yet, as Inez in A Thousand and One — which premiered (and won the Grand Jury Prize) in January at the Sundance Film Festival. "Inez is just something that I felt and I knew that I had a point to prove," Taylor told Entertainment Weekly of that role.

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