Amena:
Really excited about this episode, because y'all today we are bringing Jennifer Hudson into our HER living room. Okay, but before we get to that, let me tell y'all the things I needed to do to prepare for this situation. So whenever I'm going to interview someone on this podcast, I am very serious about the preparation parts of that. That is just my old school journalism training from when I thought I was going to have a career as a music journalist and just wanting to always walk into an interview and be prepared with the questions that you want to ask the person.
Amena:
So all that part is always a part of the process, whoever my guest is. But in this situation, knowing that I was going to in some way sit in a room where Jennifer Hudson was definitely involved some preparation. So first of all, I want to let y'all know that the trouble with having been inside as much as I remained inside during the pandemic is in some ways not knowing how to dress and also not being used to getting dressed in something that is presentable to be around other people.
Amena:
So I'm going to tell you what I have had to be doing around here to be prepared for these moments. Life is wild. This time of the pandemic has obviously brought us a lot of terrible things, but it's totally changed a lot of life, definitely for all of us and in certain ways for me. So of course, as many of you know, in the before times, I spent all my time traveling or performing on stage or producing video content or something. There was just a lot of have to be on all the time, and there was a lot of consistently having to buy clothing in order to have the proper look for these situations that I would be in, whether that was a performance or a meeting or whatever.
Amena:
Well, as the pandemic wore on, and I really had less of a daily need for those clothes, I was packing up clothes seasonally as I would normally do. When it gets cold and you pack up your summer clothes, and then when it's about to be summer here in Atlanta, sort of packing up all that, which sometimes summer in Atlanta feels like it's March. But you know, packing up all those clothes.
Amena:
So now y'all, I want y'all to know that basically my closet and drawers are just full of casual jumpsuits, sweatsuits, and house pants and that's what I'm doing every day. So then I have boxes where I pack away the seasonal clothes, so right now the winter clothes are all packed up. And then I actually have a box y'all that's labeled dress up clothes. So at the point that I'm like, okay, this interview with Jennifer Hudson has been confirmed, here is the time it's going to be, I still didn't know if there were going to be pictures, if there was going to be video, I just don't know. And I have learned in this life to always be prepared as if there is going to be video and as if there will be pictures, because the moment you don't there is always going to be a video and there will always be pictures.
Amena:
And you know how I learned this the hard way is because in the before times when I was going to an event, I would just dress raggedy on my way to the airport, in my flight. Because I would be like, no one cares, this is what I'm doing. I'll get all zhuzhed up when I get to the hotel. And it would always happen that I would be right there at the baggage claim, and somebody from the event would be like, "Hey, are you Amena Brown? I saw that you're going to be at blah, blah, blah conference. Really excited to hear from you. Hey, do you want to take a picture?" I'm going to tell you right now that after that moment, I was like, you can wear sweat pants or whatever you're going to wear, but coordinate that and probably have on either great skincare or light makeup, just be prepared. Whatever you like to look like in a picture, be prepared for that in case people are going to take a picture of you. And, we don't want to be in a room with Jennifer Hudson looking crazy.
Amena:
So basically the night before this interview, I have to open up the box of dress up clothes and pick out things that I think are going to be... The combination of things is very wild that I'm about to say. I need to pick out something that is going to be cool, because I don't want to be sweating to death. And I'm a person who just recording podcasts, talking to y'all I sweat, so not to mention that and being in a room with Jennifer Hudson. So I need to be in something that I'm not going to be sweating to death in it.
Amena:
I also need to be in something that looks good standing up and sitting down. Okay? Okay? Because sometimes you pick an outfit and when you look at yourself in the mirror, it looks so great. This has happened to me having done panel discussions in the past. And then I sat down and was like, whoa, what happened to my amazing outfit? So I had like four contenders of an outfit and it was a blazer and some shorts and another blazer and some pants, and I had two jumpsuits. So I went back to this yellow jumpsuit that I'm hoping you will get a chance to see on my social media, because I did get a chance to take a picture with Jennifer Hudson. See? Got to be prepared for that.
Amena:
Okay. So I spend all this time getting all the outfits ready and y'all, choose my outfit, get all the wrinkles out of it. Did I break out an iron? Of course not, no. I put that jumpsuit in the dryer for 10 minutes. Boom. Hung it up and it was great. Fine. So outfit was together. I was so tired that I was like whatever my hair is doing tomorrow, that's what we're doing. So I just... I'm at that stage of the twist out where it's mostly like an Afro with some very nice curls on the end. And I was like, that's what we're doing tomorrow because I'm tired and I'm not staying up tonight to do any twisting or flat twisting. I'm going to put a scarf on and go to bed and this is going to be beautiful tomorrow, because this curly hair I have, this Afro is beautiful. Boom. Okay.
Amena:
Let me tell you what I realized right as I was about to go to bed. I realized that these toenails, the toenails themselves aren't raggedy, but the nail polish that was on the toenails was raggedy. And I really needed to do something about that because you know it being summer, you want your feet to look nice in a sandal situation. And I was going to need to wear a sandal with this jumpsuit I picked. So I had to do a fast pedicure manicure right when it was time to go to bed.
Amena:
And I want to give a special shout out to the brands that have gel nail polish. I want to give a shout out to that. It's not the same gel nail polish that you might use or have put on you when you go to get your nails professionally done, but it's like the one we can do at home without the UV light. I want to give a special shout out to that because that nail polish dries so fast that I was able to get my little stuff together, put a light coat on my toenails and my fingernails, go to sleep. Okay.
Amena:
Now, of course on a day that I have a really important interview that I don't want to mess it up, okay, and y'all have probably heard that there have been some times here where an interview got messed up or recording got messed up, even if it was just me recording. But if it's just me recording and it gets messed up, I can totally rerecord it. If I mess up this recording with Jennifer Hudson, I can't go back and call her on the phone and be like, "It didn't come out good, girl. Do you think you could just hop on the phone?" You can't do that. You going to have that one time and it's going to be a limited time and that's it.
Amena:
So the morning of course that I have to do this interview, it feels like I have a thousand things. I have a doctor's appointment that morning, I have a meeting with Creative Mornings Atlanta, shout out to CreativeMornings Atlanta because I am the chapter organizer for our local Atlanta chapter of CreativeMorning. So we have our team meeting that morning and I'm literally needing to leave our team meeting so that I can make sure I make it to the very nice hotel where they are doing Jennifer Hudson's presser.
Amena:
And for those of you that work in journalism world or in any way are connected to media that way, you know that typically when a film or something like this is releasing that there will be just a day or certain days where the star of the film will have all of these kinds of slots to be interviewed, and it depends on the size of your outlet if you're going to get 30 minutes, if you're going to get five minutes or however. So it was agreed upon the amount of time that we would have. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was enough time to have some time with her to get a chance to have some conversation, and I was very excited about doing that.
Amena:
So I'm leaving the CreativeMornings Atlanta meeting, and this was our last in-person meeting for the year. And we were still hybrid, so I'm sure some of you are doing this in some of your work in volunteer environments. So there are maybe six or seven of us there in-person, masked, and meeting and then there are another six or seven of us that are on Zoom meeting. And if I'm going to have a meeting and a few people are going to be there in-person, it's very important to me to bring snacks. I just feel like you need a little vittles, you need a little something. So I got donuts from my favorite donut place in Atlanta, shout out to Revolution Doughnuts, and Revolution Doughnuts has a donut called The Crunchy Mister, which is basically their take on a donut version of a breakfast ham and cheese. It's got ham inside, it's got bechamel cheese kind of golden brown on the top. It's amazing.
Amena:
So when I order the donuts, I order the donuts thinking I'm going to order three of these Crunchy Misters because one of them is going to be mine and then there'll be two for whoever else wants to choose and then there was chocolate and vanilla bean. Y'all, it was like my timing and everything was so on point that morning. Finished with my doctor's appointment, made it to the donut place, made it to where we were meeting for CreativeMornings, and then CreativeMornings meeting ended right on time for me to leave and head to the hotel, because, and understandably so, I wanted to make sure this was on record, because when we're trying to navigate these environments now that we've experienced what COVID-19 is like, and at the time of this recording the Delta variant is running rampant here in the States as well.
Amena:
So the protocol for this interview was that anyone that wanted to participate in the interviews had to be COVID tested prior to being in the room with Jennifer Hudson. And that meant you're doing a rapid COVID test. So the interview slot was around noon, but you needed to be in the hotel at 11:30 or before because they needed to COVID test you and then the test results would take 30 minutes.
Amena:
And I'm not a person who's late all the time, y'all, but I'm a person who can be late. And I'm sure people who are late have various sundry reasons why they're late. Some people who are chronically late are late because of a sleeping situation where they are just waking up without giving themselves enough time to get ready. Okay. I fall in the category of people that are late to things because I started piddling around and doing something that isn't something you can do quickly, and then I looked up and realized, oh my gosh, now I'm late. Okay.
Amena:
So I'm walking out of the meeting with the CreativeMornings team and I'm already downtown, so I'm not far from the hotel, but I look at what time it is and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm in the perfect window to actually get there early. And for a person who has been late often, you don't have a lot of times that you're actually going to get somewhere early.
Amena:
And then it dawned on me that I never ate my donut. And I was like, should I go back upstairs and get that donut? And I really had to have a talk with myself, like, you know what? That donut is going to be available on another day, but if you go up there and get that donut, you're going to get stuck in a round of goodbyes. And y'all know what I mean. You get stuck in a round of goodbyes because there's still going to be a few people there lingering, chatting. Then I'm going to start chatting and I'm going to say goodbye to that person and say goodbye to that person and start chatting with that person again and have like a second goodbye, and I'm definitely going to be late.
Amena:
So I want y'all to know that I wanted you all to hear this conversation with Jennifer Hudson so bad that I left a donut all alone, and that's a commitment. It's a commitment I made because I love all of you that I left that donut there, just hoping that someone would take care of it in the ways that I would have by eating it very quickly.
Amena:
Anyway. So I get in the car, I'm so proud of myself for actually getting there to the hotel early, pull up to the hotel, and this is a very nice hotel. Probably would be considered like a four-star hotel, or if there's five stars, this hotel might fall in that category. And so you know how normally you pull into a hotel and it has the semi-circle driveway. Like you pull into the hotel, on the other side of the driveway you pull out. Well, the other side of the hotel driveway was under construction and I'm already downtown in Atlanta, and many of you who live in major cities here in the States know that parking is always a problem typically. It's either a problem because it's hard to find, it's expensive, or where you are if you're going to not park at the actual location, now you're going to be blocks away.
Amena:
I told you all that. I'm not really ready for this dress-up life. I've got a jumpsuit on, I've got a block heel sandal on. I'm thinking to myself, "I'm not parking seven blocks away from this place. I'm not doing it." I'm like, you know what? I'm treating myself to valet parking today. And there's a lot of things in this life that I have wanted to treat myself to, a lot of things I have wanted to treat myself to and I never thought that I would say that phrase out loud, I'm going to treat myself to valet parking. But that is how tired I was, y'all. I was like, I don't even know how much this is going to cost, but this is what I'm going to have to do today. This is what business money is for. Or as Jesse Pinkman would have told us from Breaking Bad, this is the cost of business.
Amena:
I tell myself these things. I actually told this part of the story to a friend of mine, and she was like, "No, that is self-care. It was self-care for you to pay for yourself to have valet parking." So I go there, they're giving me all the tickets and you know all this stuff you've got to do for valet. And the guy is ready to actually like take my car and park it wherever, and y'all, I realized that I had my little flat shoes on from the meeting and I was like, "Oh, I'm sorry. You're going to have to come back. I have to put my shoes on."
Amena:
So I am sitting in my not vacuumed car, sitting there putting on my shoes, grabbing all my things. I also want y'all to know that of course because of COVID normally in this type of situation, I would have had my husband with me because my husband is also my podcast producer. Our hope was initially when the opportunity for this interview with Jennifer Hudson came up, our hope was that both of us would be able to go into the room, but of course it came down to us that that wasn't going to be the case because they wanted to keep the group of people in the room with her small, which if I'm her, that's totally what I would want. So that meant my husband had to walk through with me how to use these microphones and there was a microphone for me to clip onto myself. There was a microphone for me to put on the table so that you all could hear Jennifer Hudson's answers to the different questions.
Amena:
And I'm going to tell y'all that this has happened three times before that my husband has tried to work through with me what to do when I'm recording, and I want to tell y'all that all three times that he left me unattended, something was messed up about it. So I was very nervous, y'all, okay? Very nervous. Because in the past I have never thought about recording backup recordings, but this time I was like, well this is a Jennifer Hudson thing, I can't mess this up.
Amena:
So I record on the mics that my husband showed me how to use and I also recorded a backup audio on my phone, just in case I messed up the whole thing. So I want y'all to know there's a lot going into this and all that's going on, and by the time I'm walking actually into the hotel, now it's like, let me try to be composed and professional and polished and posh in this situation.
Amena:
We go up to the fourth floor of the hotel and that's where all the COVID testing is, and I'm sure many of you by now have had a COVID test. I will say when I first was seeing the videos of people doing COVID testing, I was like, "Wow, that looks horrible. I hope that never happens to me. I hope I never have to get that test." And of course I've had to have that test several times over now. So I will say it's getting easier. It's not any less strange or any less uncomfortable, but it's getting easier as I'm getting used to it. But it was definitely a weird feeling to obviously have that Q-tip like circling your nose and then just having to sit on the fourth floor and wait to hear if your test is going to come back negative. And at the point that your test comes back negative, then you'll be taken to the next floor, which is where all the interviews were taking place.
Amena:
So I sit in my 30 minutes, had a chance to catch up with a wonderful woman that I had met online before and we got a chance to catch up and talk about what it's like to be Black women in the media, and all that was wonderful. And then my 30 minutes passed and I was like, "Woo. Okay, negative test. Great." They give you a little wristband. I mean this thing was secure, secure. Okay. And then we go up to the 50th floor and I was expecting there to be this very long rectangular table and that Jennifer Hudson was going to be sitting at the far end and that all of us were going to be sitting at the way far end away from her and all we were going to have is maybe a mic that we could put near her, but we were going to be far away from her.
Amena:
And when I walked into the room and saw of course the poster for Respect and saw this round table. Even though we had been told it was going to be a round table interview, I didn't literally expect a round table. And they were like, "Here's the chair where Jennifer Hudson's going to sit. You all are welcome to sit wherever you're comfortable."
Amena:
So I'm there with about five or six other Black women representing different media outlets, and so we're all kind of chit chatting while we're waiting for Jennifer to come in. And we were all just talking about how we weren't expecting to get a chance to actually sit that close to her. It was so wonderful when she walked in the room and saw that it was a room of us as Black women and she was so happy to see us. And of course we were so happy to see her.
Amena:
That experience, first of all, getting the opportunity to actually do an in-person interview. I mean, since the pandemic I've done less than five in-person interviews, and maybe it's only been two in-person interviews actually, my sister and my friend Celita, and both of them are people that I know and were in my pod during the pandemic. So this was one of the first, if not the first, interview that I've done during the pandemic where I actually had the opportunity not only to be in-person with the guest, but to also be in-person with other people working in media that were covering this interview with Jennifer as a part of the promo for Respect.
Amena:
So it was really a wonderful experience to me to get a chance to hear all of our voices and laughing and in response to her. Of course I would have loved to have an hour where I had an opportunity to just interview her myself, but there was something really wonderful and special about a few of us as Black women getting to be in the room with her, and that it wasn't just an interview, that we got a chance to really be in conversation. One of the things I really loved about watching that interaction was just how proud all of us feel as Black women, we feel proud of Jennifer Hudson and happy for her and happy for her success. I could tell that she enjoyed feeling that warmth from us in the room, so this was a wonderful thing, y'all.
Amena:
I also want you to know that I had to work very hard on a bra situation, and I am a person that for some reason finds it comfortable to speak about my need to take off my bra around strangers. I remember in that moment having to say to myself, internally like, don't talk about that right now. But I want you all to know that I had to put on a real bra, like with underwire. And we've talked about on this podcast my breast size and my breast size is not one that you really want to be out here, just willy-nilly out here. You really want some support. You need an apparatus, you need some things.
Amena:
So not only did I have to get dressed y'all in like an actual outfit and put makeup on my face and everything and try to draw in the parts of my eyebrows that won't grow anymore, I also had to put on a real bra with the underwire and everything. And all I could think as we are leaving the area once we all finished the interview, and Jennifer Hudson was very sweet to take pictures with each of us. Once she went downstairs with her team to grab some lunch so she could continue her interviews for the day, and then the rest of us that had been in the interview, we got on the elevator to go downstairs, I just literally thought to myself, "Wow. I really can't wait to get home and take this bra off." And that's promptly what I did. So I just want y'all to know I put on a real bra, I wore real shoes, I polished my nails for us so that we would get a chance to have this conversation with Jennifer Hudson. So that's a little bit of my journey, but it was totally worth it.
Amena:
And, last thing I want to tell y'all is this, I don't know if we've had a chance to talk about this fully on the podcast, but y'all know that I had the opportunity to work with Olay for their campaign Face Anything. It's actually been a year now since that campaign started and Jennifer Hudson was one of the nine women in the campaign. Now, because we are in a pandemic, the shoot for the Olay campaign happened in different cities. So originally I would think if we weren't in a pandemic that they probably would have shot all of us in the same location.
Amena:
So weeks ago, when I knew about this interview, I kept saying to myself, "Amena, don't forget. Make sure you've mentioned to Jennifer Hudson that if there hadn't been a pandemic, you probably would have met her a year ago because y'all would have filmed that Olay spot together." Because there is an Olay commercial where the narration is mostly my voice and Jennifer Hudson's voice. And I'm going to tell y'all that the interview finished, I got in my car... also, shout out to the movie studio and the promotions companies because our valet parking was covered. So the movie studio treated me to valet parking, I didn't even have to treat myself. I pull away from there, I get home y'all, bra off, wash my makeup off, I'm texting my friends to tell them how the interview went, and that's when I remembered that I totally forgot to say that to Jennifer Hudson.
Amena:
So Jennifer, if you're listening girl, I was in that Olay campaign with you and it was such an honor to see our voices get to share space together. And I hope the next time that we're in a campaign together, we actually get to do that thing in-person. That's what I was supposed to tell you, girl.
Amena:
Anyways, y'all, everything's fine. I hope that this will not be Jennifer Hudson's last time on this podcast, and I hope that won't be my last time getting a chance to meet her, but I can't wait for y'all to check out our conversation.
Amena:
I've had a chance to check out this film and I know many of you are already excited to check out Respect, starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin. Respect is only in theaters beginning August 13th. Jennifer Hudson performed all of the songs live, so you will love experiencing the sound and visuals of this movie in the theater. Aretha Franklin handpicked Jennifer Hudson to play her in this biopic, featuring an all-star cast of Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess, and Mary J. Blige. Go check it out. Respect in theaters, August 13.
Amena:
As we begin the conversation, one of the Black women in the room asked Jennifer Hudson what it was like to not only play Aretha Franklin and prep for the role, but to play Aretha Franklin in scenes where Aretha is interacting with Dr. King.
Jennifer Hudson:
It was definitely a process. The director, Tommy Liesl, and I created a whole team. The dialect coach, I worked with a dialect coach. Tom Johnson. Lelund was my acting coach. I had a movement coach, Taj. And every department focused on different things. I added the piano teacher. I cannot do this movie without learning, as an actor, learning the elements.
Speaker 3:
It's about challenging yourself.
Jennifer Hudson:
Yes, and I loved the challenge. And she's the ultimate. I still get up and be like... I still do my piano lessons to this day. I do. That's another piece that I've walked away with. To me, that was the most foreign thing to me out of everything. For the most part, everything felt very familiar or maybe experienced before. But I was like, okay, now if they called me right now today or tomorrow, get up and act and let's shoot this, I would be ready, but the piano. I'm like uh-uh (negative). Although I play a little bit, but I peck. She played. Okay? [crosstalk 00:27:05] So that was foreign.
Jennifer Hudson:
What my goal was in the film was to experience each experience of her life as she did in life. So it felt real, it felt very real. And doing the research, it kind of felt creepy at times because I'm looking at the footage as a reference and then here we are recreating these moments. So the only way to make them that much more real is to actually be in the moment. I always... I'm very present. You know what I mean? Like, well, what does this moment require in living in that moment, which made it feel that much more authentic. And then his voice sounded so much like Dr. King.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah.
Jennifer Hudson:
Wasn't he amazing? It tripped me up of just how the closeness of the two. Hearing about it in our era, I'm sure you guys can relate, you know of Dr. King and what he represented in that time and you know what she represented, but did you ever imagine them that close?
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Jennifer Hudson:
So even for me, that's a realization, like I'm putting the pieces together too. And that is why the memorial scene to me is so raw and honest, and that's what I mean by trying to experience it as closely to how she lived it. Even the singing. Like no, if she sang it live, we're going to sing it live right here. If that's how she experienced, that's how we're going to recreate it.
Jennifer Hudson:
In that moment I couldn't help to really think about it. Because when you plan something, at least for me, I like perspective. What was it like from her perspective? And I know being the singer, a lot of times you don't know what's going on in our lives and we still got to get up and be the light. Imagine being Aretha during that time having to still get up and be that light to somebody she called Uncle. He was Dr. King to... Imagine how we've been affected. But we're still removed from it and how badly we are affected. I can't imagine how she felt in that moment and still having to get up there to lift up everyone. You can't help but to feel for that. Imagine the pressures of that. Like, wait, Dr. King died and then what he represented then and still to us all, and she had to get up there and pull through that. That's a lot.
Amena:
Music played such a big role in Aretha's life, not just professionally, but spiritually. Jennifer shares how the power of music is so important to her life every day.
Jennifer Hudson:
It goes to whatever I'm going through in that moment, and it shapes everything. Music is that powerful. Whether people are musicians or not, if you think about it, it's a part of everything in life. Music is always there. And I know for me, it dictates my every emotion. I always say a room without music has no personality. You know what I mean? That's how my son finds me around the house. Like, oh, she's up. [crosstalk 00:29:54].
Jennifer Hudson:
I do love Great is Thy Faithfulness. That's definitely a good one.
Speaker 4:
That's a good one. That's a good one too.
Jennifer Hudson:
But it varies. It depends on what I'm going through or what I need to exude.
Amena:
Jennifer Hudson has had the opportunity to work alongside fantastic leading men and shared with us what it was like acting alongside Jamie Foxx in Dreamgirls, and now alongside Marlon Wayans in Respect.
Jennifer Hudson:
We had a great time. I don't know, I love my Jamie too. Jamie Foxx was like oh yeah. Jamie will always be on piano singing something, entertaining somewhat. But Marlon liked gifts though. He will buy you chocolates, he ordered me a massage. He wouldn't let anyone else bring me my food. I'm taking her her food. What do you want to eat? Jamie didn't do all of that.
Amena:
Of course, we couldn't have a conversation about Jennifer Hudson playing Aretha Franklin without talking about the fashions involved in this movie. Here, Jennifer shares her favorite fashions from the film.
Jennifer Hudson:
Well, some of my favorite outfits, the one that's on the poster. It was heavy but it was so true to her. Very iconic. I like the one with the feathers from the Dr. King moment. And then the birthday dress, the gold dress. That's when I felt like... I was like, "Okay, I feel [crosstalk 00:31:17]." Who puts this on for a birthday? Yes, that. But it was the art of it all. If you notice, she starts off very subtle, and if you notice in the scenes where the men are taking the lead, but as you carry on, you gradually see her takeover and gain her own voice and in charge of her own life, which was a cool thing to play out, to watch her. It's the same with her and Ted walks into Muscle Shoals he starts out leading, but by the time you get to the end she has taken the front seat. You know what I mean? It shapes the timeframe in which you're in it. It matters.
Jennifer Hudson:
Even with the costume, all of it plays a role. It's almost a character in itself. And for me as an actor, it helps me feel like the character. So it was [inaudible 00:32:06] Lawrence Davis, or Davison, I call them Seas and Salt because we're good friends. It's like you know your name. I have to give credit to all of them. That was the beautiful thing about this entire project, everybody from every department was in it out of love and respect for Ms. Franklin.
Jennifer Hudson:
It was fun to go back. When I wrapped, I was like, guys, excuse me, I've been stuck in the '60s for like eight months. Because I really felt like it was a time swap. Even coming back, like where are we, 2020? What are we doing now? Because we went back in time.
Amena:
I did want to ask a very important question, which is what is your favorite Aretha wig? Because the wigs. The wigs. I need to know before we leave each other.
Jennifer Hudson:
I got an answer for that.
Amena:
Okay.
Jennifer Hudson:
It's the beehive. The wig is called the beehive. I had 11 wig changes and 83 costume changes.
Amena:
In the movie, we're watching Aretha find her voice, literally as a singer, but also as a business woman, as how she's going to exist in the world. I know you've had to find your voice as well. What advice would you give to Black women on how to find your voice, on how to take up space? I mean, we're even having this interview coming off of watching Black women, Olympians making choices to use their voices for their own mental health, to take care of themselves. What advice would you give to black women? How do we stay on the journey of finding our voices?
Jennifer Hudson:
It's more so not giving it away. Sometimes, even for myself, it's like I've said so many times okay, we use my instrument as a singer, but what everybody else want to say? What about my own life experiences? So us taking up that space for ourselves and saying, "No, no, no. I'm going to use my voice for me." I got a story to tell too. Somebody should hear from me and allow me to use my voice to speak up and be the narrative of my own experience.
Jennifer Hudson:
Learning of the era, I come from a completely different era, we all do. You know what I mean? So to learn how women had to exist during those times, what the circumstances were, the conditions which was completely different. I'm a very outspoken person, take up a lot of... a lot of us do. A lot of room. We don't have to second guess what we can say, what we can do. Whereas wow, well, what was life like for women during that time? And then to have to be able to find a way to translate that more so through expressions than verbalizing things, which was very different. And I'm like, "Wow, I can't just walk in and hey," or speak my mind. So that was different, just going back and trying to understand the era which she grew up in and what it was like for women during that time.
Jennifer Hudson:
You know, I still feel like I'm finding that and that's what I've taken from this whole thing. It's like, wow, if it took for her to own her own voice to own her own voice, that's when we got our queen of soul. So if I took that time, if you took that time, and we took that time, what queen lies within us? It makes me want to own that within myself that much more.
Amena:
Oh, I love that. I love that, especially because at the end of these episodes, I normally like to shout out a woman of color by giving her a crown. I love the thought of us finding the queen in all of us. So, to all of you, my listeners here in our living room, I hope you are reminded of the things you've achieved, survived, accomplished. I hope you remember that giving yourself a crown is a celebration of caring for yourself, being gentle with yourself, and proud of yourself for the ways you've healed and the things you've overcome.
Amena:
Big, big thank you to Jennifer Hudson for being so kind and generous with her time, and thank you to the other Black women who joined me at this round table. Make sure you check out Respect in theaters August 13. Thanks for listening.
Amena:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.