‘My first villain’: Actor Sterling Baker-McClary on playing Ike Turner on stage

Sterling Baker-McClary, who plays Ike Turner in Broadway Across Canada’s presentation of ‘Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,’ joins Ian White with details on the sh

Actor Sterling Baker-McClary is bright, enthusiastic and full of laughter – the antithesis of Ike Turner, who he plays in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.

“This is actually my first villain that I’ve ever played, and I’m actually having the time of my life,” Baker-McClary told CTV News.

The Broadway musical, on stage at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium from March 18 – 23, tells Tina Turner’s life story, including the abuse she endured from her first husband, Ike.

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“Before he was an abuser, before he was a villain, before he was anything or depicted as anything else, he was a person first,” Baker-McClary said.

“I try to show those personable and human qualities of Ike, so it can be just as hard for the audience to leave me and just as hard for the audience to have that bad blood for me, the same way that it was for Tina in real life.”