Jennifer Hudson on Playing Aretha, Dealing With Loss (Photos)

Jennifer Hudson graces the cover of InStyle Magazine for the month of of August.

The American Idol season 3 alum, Grammy and Oscar winner is gearing up for the release of the Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect, out August 13.

The singer posted her magazine cover, and favorite shot from the photo shoot, to her social media accounts. On the cover, Jennifer wears a peach colored outfit and a short fur coat. Jennifer echos the cover caption in her blurb, “Badass Women! I had soo much fun on my InStyle cover shoot!” she wrote.

This is my favorite pic from my @InStyle cover shoot,” Jennifer wrote in another post. “My other favorite part is that it was inspired by my own personal style ! That’s how it’s suppose to be !”

There are tons more fashion photos accompanying the cover story. Check it out at InStyle.com

A few highlights from the piece:

  • On her life during the COVID pandemic “I’ve been able to work on my craft more, figure out what I want to do more, be creative like I used to be,” Hudson says. “Let me play in my closet. Let me play in my clothes. Let me play with my hair. All the things I used to do growing up.”
  • Jennifer practiced Nessun Dorma for two months, a song Aretha sang at the 1998 Grammys. “When I listen to a song, I used to just listen to the vocal line,” she says. “I’m a singer, a vocalist. Aretha was the mastermind behind the music. She was music. So even when she was singing, she dictated everything. She created it, and she could interchange it however she wanted to, right there in the spirit of the moment.”
  • Aretha approached Jennifer years ago about playing her in a biopic “She said, ‘Jennifer, you’re going to do this. I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll do it if she says I can do it, if she thinks I can.’ That’s Ms. Franklin!”
  • Jennifer rarely speaks about the murder of her mother brother and nephew in 2008: “In that moment, it clicked with me like, ‘Is this what she [Aretha] saw in me?’ Because we parallel in so many ways through our life stories and the things we’ve been through and experienced. I know, as a person who has suffered a lot of loss, I don’t like having to talk to people who haven’t lost anything,”
  • She sought out Aretha’s friend, and fellow The Voice UK coach Tom Jones for vocal coaching: “It’s tricky. You don’t want to come off as if you’re mimicking somebody, especially somebody like Aretha.”
  • Jennifer wants to branch out into directing and producing “I would like to be like a pioneer in the industry, one of the older generation just giving other people opportunities.”

About mj santilli 34841 Articles
Founder and editor of mjsbigblog.com, home of the awesomest fan community on the net. I love cheesy singing shows of all kinds, whether reality or scripted. I adore American Idol, but also love The Voice, Glee, X Factor and more!