Jennifer Hudson Discusses Dream Role

Jen Yamamoto from Rotten Tomatoes sat down with "it girl" Jennifer Hudson to discuss her role in the hit movie "Dreamgirls" and the road to fame. The debut performance just might earn her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The experience is definitely a surreal one for someone who never even knew she had a penchant for acting. She humbly addresses her newfound acting abilities, saying, "I'm like, huh? They want me to do what? Act? OK! But I've never thought about it, so this is a surprise to me, but I'm loving it." She also admits to Jen that she'd like to continue with both her musical and acting career. If given her way, she'd love to perform in a big-screen adaptation of "A Star is Born" as well as have some sort of role in the Jackie Robinson biopic. She's reading scripts right now, so it looks as though her next role could be in the very near future. Jennifer was thrilled to work with such a star-studded ensemble cast. She was amazed by Beyonce's level of hard work and determination, Eddie Murphy's ability to transport himself into character and Danny Glover's animated table reads. But the one person on the set that truly inspired her was Jamie Foxx. As she puts it, "Any time I would get lost in the moment like ok, I don't understand, what do you mean Bill, how do you want this to be approached? And Jamie would give me an example like 'Girl, try it like this,' and he would set it up for me and act it out." The vocals came much easier to Jennifer. She patterned most of the songs after her musical inspirations. However, she remained true to her own style, right down to doing her own vocal arrangements. "They allowed me to because when I recorded 'And I'm Telling You' I did it four different times. And the final time Bill [Condon] was like, just let her sing. Just let her have a moment, let her do it. And it took one take." As she says, it took a while for her to strip herself of some basic vocal rules and instead "let it be led by emotion." Visit Rotten Tomatoes to read the full interview which includes Jennifer's very revealing thoughts on being part of American Idol.