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Longtime Nina Simone Collaborator Al Schackman Weighs in on Film's Controversial Casting: 'Nobody Could Do Nina'

Al Schackman wasn’t surprised by the uproar over the casting of Zoe Saldana as the late legendary singer Nina Simone in the new biopic Nina. Schackman is in a tough position in that he consulted on and even appears in Nina, written and directed by Cynthia Mort, but has obvious loyalties to Simone, who died of breast cancer in 2003. In his eyes, Saldana, or original star Mary J. Blige, or fan favorite Viola Davis — they’d all have an uphill battle in portraying the iconic songbird.