Stanley Tucci on his love of Whitney Houston and being moved by Naomi Ackie's performance

Producer and icon-maker Clive Davis has had his hand in the careers of so many major recording artists of the 20th century — from Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin to Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel — it's a wonder he hasn't had his own biopic yet.

And then, of course, there's Whitney Houston, who Davis signed to his label Arista Records when she was just 19. In the new biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Stanley Tucci plays Davis to Naomi Ackie's Whitney.

Emily Aragones/TRISTAR pictures

By his own admission, Tucci didn't know much about the late singer's personal life and struggles going into the project, except that he "loved her."

"I loved watching her, I loved listening to her," Tucci tells EW in the video above. "And her songs became a really big part of our lives without even knowing it. You don't even have to go buy a Whitney Houston album. It's there all around you. And she changed the way, like Clive did, the way we hear music."

The Oscar-nominated actor was also floored by Ackie's performance, saying he "got chills every time she did a take."

"It's Whitney's voice, obviously. But the way Naomi did it, you'd swear to God, she was singing it," Tucci said of Ackie. "It was very, very moving."

Related content:

• I Wanna Dance with Somebody's Naomi Ackie on the Whitney Houston wigs she stole from the set

• Becoming Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance with Somebody

• Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy has been canceled, but he still wants to make season 3