‘Tina Turner Musical’ Star Zurin Villanueva on Performing After Music Icon’s Death: ‘I Was a Wreck’
variety.comMarc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Zurin Villanueva was starring in the national tour of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” when news broke in May that the music icon had died at age 83.
A week later, while performing the scene in which Turner’s mother dies, Villanueva was overcome with emotion. “I was a wreck,” Villanueva tells Variety while in Los Angeles for the show’s run at the Pantages Theatre. “I thought I was okay.
I felt like we grieved last week so I was fine. But then mama dies and I’m like, ‘I’m not fine.’ And right after she dies, I start singing ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome).’ So I’m crying and it’s like you have to either sing through it or you let it impede you.
I was like, ‘No, relax. There can be snot everywhere, but you can still sing.’” Villanueva is still on tour, belting out Turner’s classics every other night of the week.
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