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After much anticipation, we are just days away from seeing Jennifer Hudson portray Aretha Franklin in her biopic Respect. Ahead of its release, a clip from the film has been released where Hudson is singing the title track.  From her voice to her look, Hudson is everything we thought she would be.

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Hudson didn’t have to audition for the role because she was selected by the Queen of Soul herself to play this role.  After the release of Dreamgirls, Franklin called the Academy Award winner and met with her in New York. After being impressed with Hudson,  Franklin casted her in the flick.

In an interview with Collider, Hudson shared that even though she learned a lot from Franklin since meeting her 20 years ago, she became more connected with her while portraying her in this film.

I just sit back and think about how much of a blueprint that she’s been in my life and in my career, and so many others. I felt as though that’s been a part of it, in portraying her, but it wasn’t until being in the thick of things that I got to even understand her that much more for myself, as a person and not necessarily as Aretha Franklin, the icon, or the voice, or this or that song. I was be able to learn of the individual while developing the character. It makes me think back to our conversations that we would have. I realized while filming and doing research on her, “Wow, she taught me more about life while teaching me about her life.” And then, to realize what she was speaking about, she was speaking from her real life experiences. That didn’t hit me till later. I was like, “No, she was really schooling me in those moments, based off of experiences.

Respect hits theaters August 13.

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