Andra Day recovering from portraying Billie Holiday

Andra Day is still recovering from her turn as Billie Holiday after taking a deep dive into the jazz and blues singer's life.

A huge fan of Holiday's, Day won over director Lee Daniels at her audition with passion and landed her first acting role in the process, but she confessed her film debut in The United States vs. Billie Holiday took its toll on her.

"There’s still a lot that I am working out in me from playing Billie," Andra explained in an interview obtained by Just Jared. "She gets in, you know what I mean? She gets ahold," she went on.

Admitting that the part "was a commitment", Day said: "I think it’s one I’m recovering from still".

The singer even took up smoking for the first time to get inside her character.

"I’d never smoked cigarettes before. Just starting out smoking, I was practising with my acting coach... I was like, 'I want some of your American Spirits'. That first day I was drinking vodka and smoking cigarettes, and I went home and threw up, like, five times!" she recalled.

The nicotine habit has stuck with Day, who shared: "I finished the last pick-up shots last year, but what I expected to be a four, five, or six-month habit ended up turning into about a year and a half."

She also "drank a lot of gin and bourbon" to get into the spirit of Billie, who died of complications from cirrhosis caused by alcohol abuse.

"I hadn’t drank in so long, and it was never really a big part of my life, even when I did when I was younger," she added.