Is Cats bad, or so bad it’s good? The musical fantasy movie certainly turned heads, if for many of the wrong reasons. One of the stars, Jennifer Hudson, sees it in a fairer light than many.
“You know what? I think it was a bit overwhelming. It’s unfortunate that it was misunderstood,” Hudson tells Total Film, via GamesRadar. “I think later down the line, people will see it differently. But it is something I am still very proud of and grateful to have been a part of. Yeah, I got to be Grizabella the Glamour Cat!”
If playing Grizabella wasn’t cool enough, Hudson shared the musical with a lot of Hollywood’s best and brightest. Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo – that cast is stacked, making Tom Hooper’s spectacle to the anthropomorphic all the more bizarre. We’ll have to see where Cats lands in the zeitgeist. For now, it’s been swept under the rug like an unwanted toy, but bad movies, especially ones that have low Rotten Tomatoes scores, have a tendency to becomes classics in their own way in due time.
The adventure movie, adapted from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Broadway show, certainly had a positive impact on Hudson, who reveals she bought two cats as a result. “They are the best thing I’ve ever had. I love them so much,” she says.
Among the mysteries surrounding Cats is an alternative cut, the ‘Butthole Cut’. So the story goes, part of the effects crew’s job was to remove visible private areas on various actors. This has been quelled, substantiated, and denied by Universal. One fan even made their own. It may not redeem critical opinion, but it would get us to watch it again.
Hudson plays Aretha Franklin in the musical biopic Respect, which comes out September 10 in the UK.