HONORING ARETHA
A SHARED FAITH AND SENSE OF PURPOSE HELPED JENNIFER HUDSON BECOME THE QUEEN OF SOUL IN
When Jennifer Hudson learned she would be playing Aretha Franklin in the new music-filled biopic Respect (in theaters Aug. 13), she knew it would be both the greatest opportunity of her life and the most daunting challenge she would ever face.
“Oh, Lord!” says Hudson, 39. “It was definitely a double-edged sword. I thought, How do I play someone so treasured and someone I treasure so much?”
Handpicked by Franklin for the part, Hudson spoke with the singer weekly during the final months of her life in 2018. those conversations, the two entertainers bonded over their mutual background in religion. “I grew up in church singing ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Mary, Don’t You Weep,’ songs that were part of Aretha’s gospel album [Amazing Grace],” Hudson says, adding that the legend told her “to hold on to the idea of her faith most of all. I think that was most dear to her.”
Hudson, who rose to fame as a finalist on TV's American Idol, received an Oscar for her debut film role in the muscial drama Dreamgirls (2006). Her numerous other movies include The Secret Life of Bees, Sex and the City, Black Nativity, Sing and Cats, and she’s appeared on television in Smash, Empire and Confirmation and on Broadway in The Color Purple.
For Respect, Hudson had the formidable task of performing her own versions of the star’s classic hits. “When I got together with the dialogue coach on the film, we said, ‘OK, we have to look at her instrument and how it’s made, and then my instrument and how it’s made.’ We have similar instruments, but they’re built differently. I have a clearer sound and her voice had more of a rasp.” Over the course of the film, Hudson had to capture the sound of the Queen from her teens through her commercial peak. “There’s a narrative arc to the voice,” Hudson says. “The voice gradually changes throughout the film."
Besides conveying Franklin's talents as a singer, the film also demonstrates her skills as a pianist and an arranger. “In the studio, she was in the driver’s seat,” Hudson says. “She could be the conductor, the composer, the voice—she was everything.”
Beyond Franklin's musical talents, the film sets out to capture her role as an en during symbol of American culture. “She means so much to us because she was very conscious of her people and of her time,” says Hudson. “When she sang, it became more than just a song. It came from a place of purpose and understanding. That’s why she made the deep impression she will always have on all of us.”