Let me get this a little less than straight: Jennifer Hudson, hot off of winning Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Effie White in Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls, has just joined the cast of Sex & the City: Bigger, Deeper & Unprotected? While I loved Hudson in Dreamgirls (and, by the way, loved Dreamgirls in general), she is, with only one finished film to her name, dangerously close to becoming the Debbie Reynolds of her generation.
As long as you’re cool with bad marriages, questionable business decisions, and having your target audience turn you into a caricature in cabarets all over the country, there are definitely worse fates: e.g. you could be your generation’s Liza Minnelli. That said, she’s got a long, long way to go before she’s fit to be compared to either one of those legends; even though Hudson already has an Oscar, the jury is still out on her ability as an actress. I mean, she was great in Dreamgirls, but let’s not pretend that she won that trophy for anything other than her singing, and, in particular, her performance of "And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going". Let’s see what happens when she’s not breaking into song every ten minutes.
In S&TC:BD&U, Hudson will play Sarah Jessica Parker’s assistant, who dreams of going to Paris during fashion week and getting rogered by Simon Baker. According to Variety, the narrative will pick up exactly four years after the end of the show, which means this will be a menopausal battle royale of nips and tucks. Shooting is set to begin sometime this year. I’ll be publishing daily call sheets so you’ll know where to protest.