NAOMI ACKIE: Playing Whitney Houston Changed Everything - I’m a Different Person Now
Great Company with Jamie Laing
Jampot
4.5 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2026
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Naomi Ackie is an award-winning actor known for her roles in The End of The F***ing World, Blink Twice and playing Whitney Houston in the 2023 biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
I love speaking to hugely talented actors like Naomi. I’m always so curious to know what they’re like away from the characters they play.
Naomi is a perfectionist who has been incredibly hard on herself throughout her career. In our conversation, she shares how her biggest role nearly broke her, what she’s learnt from it and why she won’t let it happen again.
In this episode, Naomi shares:
- The advice her Mum gave her when she first said she wanted to be an actor
- The anxiety & panic attacks that came with playing Whitney Houston
- How losing her Mum at 22 years old changed her
- What it’s like working alongside Zoe Kravitz, Florence Pugh & Robert Pattison
- What happened when Channing Tatum gave her sister a lap dance
This conversation is a reminder that we should all stop judging ourselves so harshly and start celebrating our successes.
Naomi Ackie is Great Company.
If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us:
Instagram- @greatcompanypodcast
TikTok - @greatcompanypodcast
Jamie - @jamielaing
And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: greatcompany@jampotproductions.co.uk
THE CREDITS
Executive Producer: Ewan Newbigging-Lister
Producer: Helen Burke
Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins
Video: Josh Bennett
Social Media: Laura Coughlan
Audio: Rafi Amsili Geovannetti
Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You had this anxiety and these panic attacks. |
| 0:02.5 | So many, on set. |
| 0:03.8 | Actress Naomi Aki. |
| 0:05.8 | The worst part was when you were playing Whitney. |
| 0:07.5 | I will never put myself in that position again. |
| 0:10.0 | I gave a thousand percent when I needed to give 90. |
| 0:13.7 | I lost like two and a bit stone to play her. |
| 0:16.9 | I was so hungry. |
| 0:17.9 | I was directly challenged with the idea of perfection, and that nearly destroyed me. |
| 0:24.4 | Hi, I'm Naomi Aki, and I'm in great company. |
| 0:27.1 | It's Naomi Aki! |
| 0:30.1 | Have you met people that are your heroes, that you're icons? |
| 0:33.2 | Charlie would be like, hey, Nana. |
| 0:34.5 | I was like, oh my God, Charlie Davis calling me Neney! |
| 0:37.3 | I got him to do a lap dance for my sister. |
| 0:55.0 | Get out of it. Yes. I was like, Charlie, dance for her! Dance for it! Are you introvert or extroverted? Intraved. You're introverted? Yeah. Okay. Deeply. It's a problem. I was a very fearful child. A lot of my life, I have been scared. |
| 0:57.3 | I'm a fearful person by nature. |
| 0:55.0 | Can we talk about your mum? I was a very fearful child. A lot of my life, I have been scared. I'm a fearful person by nature. |
| 0:57.0 | Can we talk about your mum? |
| 0:58.0 | I remember the feeling as she was dying |
| 1:00.0 | was that the world was the most vivid it had ever been. |
| 1:03.0 | She was a very wise woman. |
... |
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