For decades, Tina Turner has been not just the Queen of Rock & Roll but a symbol of survival, at once the pinnacle of artistic achievement and an icon of clawing your way back from the bottom.

So when the superstardied in May,at 83, her significance entered a new chapter for all of us — though perhaps especially for Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva, who alternate in the title role of “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.”

The show — which plays BroadwaySF’s Golden Gate Theatre running Tuesday, Aug. 1, through Aug. 27, followed by a Broadway San Jose run Aug. 29-Sept. 3 — tells the story of how 17-year-old Anna Mae Bullock of Nutbush, Tenn., caught the ear of Ike Turner, achieved fame as the abuser’s romantic and artistic partner, and, eventually, with only cents to her name, broke free and made an improbable solo comeback.

The Chronicle spoke to Rodgers and Villanueva about inhabiting someone so deeply, never meeting her, yet mourning her loss.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: First of all, Naomi, your boyfriend, Roderick Lawrence, plays Ike, sans an alternate. How do people react when they learn that?

Rodgers:They always just ask, “Are y’all OK? How does that work?” When we get onstage, we have a story to tell. We are truly, truly professional. We clock in, and we clock out. Our check-in is: Look at each other. We’re the eyeball couple. He could be far away in the room, and I just look him in the eyes.

Q: As you both researched Tina Turner’s life to prepare for the role, what stood out to you?

Villanueva:她开始如果nging with Ike when she was still in high school, and she got her money from Ike. The very first time she was her own standing adult, she was 40-something years old with two children.

I think she survived through laughter in the beginning. That’s a tradition of many African Americans in this country. And then she changed her entire life through her mind.

Rodgers:Her Buddhism saved her.

Villanueva:She had no reason to believe that she could get out of that situation alive or thriving, and chanting is what saved her life.

Q: Who was Anna Mae Bullock, and who was Tina Turner?

Rodgers:她总是被安娜美。她让statement: “I love being Anna Mae, but when we talk Tina, we’re talking business.”

Q: You were both on break when Tina Turner died in May. How did you feel when you found out?

Rodgers:My heart dropped a bit. I had never felt this way about someone: never meeting them, but losing them. It’s like losing a loved one, because she’s my life now.

Villanueva:It was a heavy, rolling, deep-like grief, and then I got this sense of immense gratitude. I was so indebted. Not only has this role changed my life in terms of my career, but the things that I’ve been able to put to practice — knowing this story, walking in these shoes on this stage has made me a better woman. It’s made me more of myself. The parts of myself that I had been sequestering — doing this part requires all of you, so you can’t do that. So it was like, “Oh, all of me? That piece, too? That piece is crazy!”

Q: What was it like the first time you performed the role again?

Villanueva:I cried and I sang through it — like, just let it roll through me.

Rodgers:I thought I was going to be very emotional. But the show is so emotional you can’t pick and choose your emotions. So I chose to put my energy into the show and not into how I felt. The whole show was just me just basically upping the ante and telling the story harder, telling it clearer, telling it with more conviction.

I remember I was singing “River Deep — Mountain High,” and just in the back of my head, I could feel her saying, “Do that thing that you do when you go to that one high part,” and I did that thing. So when people tell me, “Her spirit’s in you,” I really do feel that.

Q: Tina Turner was a symbol of survival for so many of us, but do you have any thoughts on how we can talk about being a survivor without defining someone by their abuse?

Villanueva:That was definitely something she struggled with. She didn’t want anyone to know. She got convinced to tell her story. And I’m glad she did, because there are so many people out there dealing with what she dealt with. But at the same time, you say “Tina Turner,” and you start talking about Ike.

It’s one of those things that happens to women. Who we’re with starts defining us more than what we’ve done. I’ve had that actual experience. One of my boyfriends was in the business, and they would call me “his name’s girlfriend.” I would be like, “No, no, no! Do you call him ‘Zurin’s boyfriend’?” It was so weird because at the time, I’d had three Broadway shows, and he hadn’t had one yet.

So when I was researching her, I definitely wanted to get into her energy and who she was as a human without that. What I found was creativeness and attention to detail and love for her children. She raised two of Ike’s kids as well. That is someone who really understands, “Those are babies, and I’m loving them. I don’t care where they came from.”

I think as women, we can do our due diligence when we’re learning about other women in terms of, “OK, that happened, but what else?” That’s why it’s so important that she stood on her own two feet and was a solo artist.

Reach Lily Janiak:ljaniak@sfchronicle.com