Trailer
Plot summary
In 1988, Nina Simone, the jazz musician and classical pianist, has little money, is mentally unstable and drinks heavily, with the success of her 1960s heyday far behind her. She threatens a lawyer with a gun and is held for twenty-four hours in a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles, where she hires an orderly, Clifton Henderson, as her assistant. He goes with her to France, to the house she keeps in Bouc-Bel-Air. There Nina keeps drinking, refuses the medication she needs, and is difficult and confrontational toward him. At a nightclub performance she assaults a patron, and she has Clifton find her men for one-night stands.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Nina (2016)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mary J. Blige was originally cast as Nina Simone, with David Oyelowo as Clifton Henderson, but she exited the project over financial issues and was replaced in August 2012 by the Afro-Latina actress Zoe Saldaña.
- After the film's trailer was released, Nina Simone's estate tweeted at Zoe Saldaña, "Please take Nina's name out of your mouth. For the rest of your life," adding that people should understand this is painful.
- In August 2020, after the murder of George Floyd and during the Black Lives Matter movement, Zoe Saldaña said she regretted playing Nina Simone, and that she should have used her leverage to cast a Black woman in the part.
- To look more like Nina Simone, the light-skinned Afro-Latina Zoe Saldaña wore dark makeup, nasal and dental prosthetics and wigs, and these changes drew continued criticism from fans, viewers and racial justice advocates such as Ta-Nehisi Coates.
- The casting of Zoe Saldaña as Nina Simone caused controversy; Simone's daughter said her mother was raised at a time when she was told her nose was too wide and her skin too dark, and that appearance-wise it was not the best choice.
- In 2014, the writer and director Cynthia Mort began taking legal action after being cut out of the decision-making process, making her unhappy with the project she had spent several years developing.
