Oscar hope Hudson brings down the house

 Add your view

 

Showstopper: Before Hudson won the part of Effie White she was better known as the girl who should have won American Idol

Troubled trio: Hudson with Anika Noni Rose and Beyonce Knowles as the Dreamettes

Inspiration: Hudson's character is based on Florence Ballard who was ousted as leader of the Supremes

Look here too

• Beyonce shines in her Supreme role
• Blog: Nick Curtis on the Oscar nominations

One new name stands out in an awards season dominated by established stars. Jennifer Hudson, who came from nowhere and was known in America only as the big girl with the big voice who failed to win American Idol in 2003, is now wowing audiences and critics with her debut performance in Dreamgirls.

In Bill Condon's adaptation of the hit Broadway musical about the rise of a Motown girl group, 25-year-old Hudson plays Effie White, a character based on the ousted leader of the Supremes, Florence Ballard.

Hudson not only blows Beyoncé Knowles (in the Diana Ross part of Deena Jones) off the screen, she also brings the house down with a six-octave assault on the showstopping song, And I Am Telling You I Ain't Going.

Her remarkable performance has already won her a Golden Globe, and her nomination for Best Supporting Actress in the Oscars is the most likely win among the eight nominations Dreamgirls has received.

We meet just over an hour after the Oscar shortlist is announced. Hudson is tall and voluptuous, clad in clinging black, wearing vertiginous heels, with a mane of straightened and re-curled hair.

She is also momentarily robbed of her usual self-confidence. "I'm in shock," says Hudson. "I'm overwhelmed. I can't even think about winning. It's unbelievable."

Before this, she'd thought the high point of her life had been preparing for last Monday's Golden Globes.

"Vera Wang made my dress for the awards. I got to meet her one-on-one and she pinned me into it," Hudson marvels. "And I got to choose between Manolo Blahniks and Gucci shoes, which is amazing for someone like me who isn't exactly familiar with designer names and such."

This is not mere Hollywood flannel. Hudson grew up the youngest of three siblings in a predominantly black district on Chicago's South Side. She claims it was a happy childhood, untainted by racism or hardship.

"It was a decent neighbourhood," she says. "We were poor but we weren't that poor - the house I grew up in had nine bedrooms.

"My mother is a secretary and my father was a bus driver. But like I say, we were poor but we thought we were rich, because we had everything we needed.

"My mom made sure we all did extra-curricular activities to keep us busy. My brother James took piano lessons and I did ballet and modelled for the Sears catalogue when I was five.

"And my parents took us on lots of trips around the States to see different things, on church socials and family reunions."

The family's life revolved around the local Baptist church, where Hudson's grandmother, Julia Kate - from whom she believes she inherited her belting, bluesy, gospel-tinged voice - was a leading light of the choir.

"We went every Sunday, and every Tuesday for choir practice," says Hudson. "That's where my vocal style comes from. I knew from the age of seven I wanted to be a singer.

"Either that or something to do with art, which I was also good at. I might have chosen to become a tattoo artist." I think she's joking, but I'm not sure.

Church instilled a rigid set of values in young Jennifer. Even today, as a rising Hollywood star, she takes quiet pride in telling me she made the honor roll for her last three years of high school, and had a perfect attendance record.

"I've never had a drink of any kind," she adds proudly. "I don't smoke and I don't do drugs, I never have and I never plan on it."

She has been with her boyfriend, James, a maintenance engineer, for eight years, and has known him since she was 13: "He was my brother's best friend." She still lives at home, at least until she can buy her mother a new place.

In her teens, Hudson enrolled in local talent shows and performed in community musicals. While her elder sister became a bus driver like their father, and her brother Jason a mechanic, Jennifer began to eke out a career singing in clubs and at local weddings after graduating from high school.

Her memories of this time are tinged with sadness. In 1998 she lost her beloved grandmother and the next year, her father.

"He died of cancer," she says. "I had just graduated, so I was about 17. It was a tough time, yes, but we had watched the elderly pass on, so we were prepared for something like this. We knew it was just a part of life. And it's better to see them gone than for them to suffer."

Her faith, it seems, sustained her, as it did when she was doing the rounds of clubs and promoters and record companies, and was pressured for the first time to lose weight.

"You get that a lot," she sighs. "In the music business it's even more about image than in the movie business. They'd mention it to me but I'd never fall for it, and I'm still here and I still have meat on my bones.

"I think it's important that people know you can be beautiful in all shapes and sizes, as long as you are comfortable with who you are. People have gotten way too thin and I don't think that's healthy."

It must be said that Hudson's ample curves look good on her, now she has lost the 20lb she gained to play Effie (Florence Ballard was always known as the "fat" Supreme, and Effie's supposed obesity is a key point in the Dreamgirls story.)

After a stint singing on a Disney cruise ship, she auditioned for American Idol, Simon Cowell's American spin-off from Pop Idol, in 2003, beating 70,000 hopefuls to become one of the show's 12 finalists.

Although she scored poorly with audiences, Idol won Hudson some influential fans. Barry Manilow said she took singing "to a whole other level".

After she covered Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing; Quentin Tarantino declared: "Hudson takes on Houston and wins!"

When she became the sixth finalist to be voted off, apparently due to judge Cowell's antipathy, it prompted Elton John to condemn the show as "incredibly racist".

"I guess I can see why he might think that," says Hudson. "Because the three of us who were considered the top singers on the show ended up in the bottom three that week, and we happened to be black. But I believe talent doesn't have a colour, and I don't feel the show was racist.

"I like Simon, he was always my favourite judge. He never criticised my weight, just my wardrobe. And looking back, I'm glad I was eliminated, because I don't think I'd be here if I had been the American Idol.

"But I did tell Simon then that it wasn't over and I'd be back, so maybe now I could say 'I told you so.'" She has a snuffling chuckle at that.

The show did win her a recording contract, and gave her the confidence to audition for the part of Effie in Dreamgirls, alongside 781 others, including the eventual American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino.

Despite her naturalness on screen, the producers were clearly worried about Hudson's lack of acting experience and there were agonising months of callbacks and re-auditions before she got the final call from director Bill Condon.

"I was in Florida in a recording studio, the day after I came back from my screen test in LA, when Bill called," she recalls. "After six months, three auditions and I dunno how many phone calls, not knowing whether I was gonna hear 'you're great' or 'you're not being considered any more', well, when he told me I'd got the part, I made him repeat it, over and over again.

"Then I called my mom and everyone I could and celebrated for about 10 minutes until I realised, my God, this is a huge responsibility and I need to focus."

In the first read-through she was nervous of meeting her co-stars: not just Beyoncé, " a vocalist I've always admired", but Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover.

"I was afraid they were all thinking, 'How is this little girl gonna play this role, she's not experienced like we are?'" she recalls. "But it wasn't like that at all. They were very supportive and patient and helpful."

Her performance in the finished film is stunning, all the more so being from a newcomer, and well worthy of an Oscar. But along with all the awards and nominations and the welcome attention she has also experienced the less savoury aspects of sudden fame.

First, there were the inevitable rumours that Beyoncé was jealous of Hudson, rigorously denied by both women (although Knowles somewhat snippily added that she was "already a star" so didn't envy Hudson the awards and attention).

Second, in an offhand comment to a gay newspaper in Dallas, Hudson seemed to say that homosexuality was "a sin". This is never a clever move for an aspirant diva, as Donna Summer could have told her, and Hudson was compelled to clarify her comments: "I find it upsetting that some folks equate being Christian with being intolerant of gay people.

"That may, unfortunately, be true for some, but it is not for me. I have talked often of my love and support for the gay community."

When I raise the incident with Hudson she dismisses it, airily but firmly. It seems that little can dent this 25-year-old's implacable calm. Even her protestations of astonishment about her meteoric rise are tempered by a confident sense of expectation.

Maybe she's had media training after the "sin" episode. Maybe it's her faith that sustains her. Or maybe she is, deep down, just as untroubled and self-assured as she seems.

I hope it's the latter. I hope she wins the Oscar she deserves. And I hope Hollywood doesn't chew her up and spit her out.

• Post this story to:
• Digg
• Reddit
• Del.icio.us
• Facebook

What is this?

Email a friend

Print this page

Receive our newsletter