(Relevant) Who would you want to play you in a movie? For most of us, it’s a fun icebreaker, a way to dream about what our life would look like through the lens of beautiful celebrities, interested in getting all our quirks and nuances just right. But for the late Queen of Soul herself Aretha Franklin, it was a real consideration. Franklin knew Hollywood would want to tell her remarkable life story, and she also knew how often these kinds of movies can go wrong. So before her passing in 2018, she took it upon herself to cast the starring role.
She selected Jennifer Hudson, and the result is this year’s Respect, which follows Franklin’s journey from singing before her father’s sermons when she was just a child to her long struggle to break into the recording industry to her eventual icon status with hits like “I Say a Little Prayer,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and, of course, “Respect.”