“There’s something about her that was very free in that and quite modern, given the time she was in,” Ackie told The Sunday Times. “That’s something I feel. I don’t know who I’ll end up with.”

Playing a force like Houston can be daunting, and for Ackie, playing her during her relationship was Crawford was “easier” than other times in her extraordinary life.

“I think that [part of Houston’s life] was actually probably easier for me to understand than some of the other things that she was going through because, you know, love is love,” she said.

Crawford addressed her relationship with Houston in her 2019 memoir, A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston. She shared that while they “never talked about labels,” she deeply loved the singer and said Houston felt the same.

“Whitney knows I loved her, and I know she loved me. We really meant everything to each other. We vowed to stand by each other,” she wrote.

Though Houston was the one to call it quits, Crawford said they stayed close friends.

“She said, ‘I don’t believe that we should be physical any longer,’ that ‘It would make our journey much harder if they found out about it,’” she reflected on Red Table Talk.

Ackie was initially skeptical about playing the Grammy Award-winning singer in the film, noting that she looks nothing like the New Jersey native, ABC reports.

“I was like, are you guys sure? Are you absolutely sure?” she told the Associated Press.

Those closest to Houston, including her family and record producer Clive Davis, knew she was the right performer for the job.

“It’s a study on the essence of Whitney and not the image of Whitney,” Ackie said of the film. “I thought, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to speak on Whitney’s internal world, and everything else is completely out of my control.”

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody comes out this Friday.