IOAN GRUFFORD SINGS AMAZING GRACE

When Ioan Grufford discovered he would be singing Amazing Grace accapella which is undoubtedly one of America’s greatest hymns of all time, he looked up his old singing teacher from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to help him with the song.

Despite the refresher course Ioan says it was still daunting on the day as he was struggling with a cold but the passion of the character Wilberforce sang through.

“It was slightly daunting to sing Amazing Grace but I think in the movie it’s a way of showing Wilberforce’s defiance against the establishment and I’m showing his change as well, his sort of religious conversion and telling people who he really is and admitting who he really is. Of course it’s daunting whenever you stand up to sing in public. But to stand up in front of your peers like that and do it time and time again was very daunting. But I’m very proud of the fact that it is me singing there and not some opera singer that I’m mouthing the words to.”

Ioan says the lyrics written by Englishman John Newton in 1772 are still very powerful today.

“Well I think it’s such a wonderful melody that John Newton I think recalled from hearing the melody being sung by the slaves on the slave ship while he was a captain. The melody itself is wonderful and the words themselves that I once was blind but now I see is such great poetic words there.”

Next Ioan will be amongst surfers instead of singing reprising his role as Mr. Fantastic in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.