Hear Cynthia Erivo’s heartfelt cover of ’80s rock ballad for emotional John Candy documentary scene (exclusive)

Grab some tissues because Cynthia Erivo is about to make you cry. Again.

For the upcoming documentary, John Candy: I Like Me, the three-time Oscar nominee has recorded a stripped-down and powerful version of the ’80s rock ballad “Everytime You Go Away,” written by Hall & Oates’ Daryl Hall and made famous by British artist Paul Young. Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive sneak peek of the track, above, which I Like Me producer (and Candy’s fellow Canadian) Ryan Reynolds asked Erivo to record.

“It was the one and only song [we considered],” Reynolds tells EW. “To me, it’s the song which honors the John Candy we knew and the John Candy we miss.”

In the Colin Hanks-directed documentary, the song — performed with an orchestra and layered with Erivo’s own choir-inspired harmonies — is featured as Candy’s children, Jennifer and Christopher, and famous friends including Catherine O’Hara and Dan Aykroyd, recall the Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles star’s sudden death in 1994, as well as clips from his emotional funeral, where O’Hara was among those who eulogized him.

Reynolds says he originally envisioned the song being performed by a gospel choir, but while “hanging out at our apartment, we briefly discussed this song,” he explains of a conversation with the Wicked star. When Erivo got home, she sent Reynolds a voice memo — audio of which you can exclusively hear below — where she sings a portion of the song’s chorus.

“My natural response was to sing the song back to him to confirm that it was indeed the Paul Young classic,” Erivo tells EW of the voice memo, “which must have struck a chord with him because all hands were immediately on deck to create an updated cover just for this!”

Reynolds, admittedly, “did not play it cool” after receiving that message from her. “Cynthia Erivo is a once-in-a-generation talent. I called and asked her, bluntly, if she’d do the song. I needed her to do it. She doesn’t just sing, she feels it in every note.”

Erivo worked with producer and musician Will Wells, her collaborator on the Oscar-nominated song “Stand Up” from her 2019 Harriet Tubman biopic, on this new version of the ’80s classic, which she acknowledges in the voice memo is “one of my favorites.”

A couple of weeks later, Reynolds says, they delivered the track.

“It’s the song it’s supposed to be. And it’s in the movie it’s supposed to be in,” he says. “It somehow captured the joy and the loss and the enduring kindness of John Candy. Cynthia delivered my favorite song, and it haunts me. I hold it in my chest and in my hands and stomach all day, every day. I love Cynthia Erivo. Her singularity somehow has multitudes.”

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John Candy: I Like Me is available Oct. 10 on Prime Video.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly