Jennifer Hudson Didn’t Know What Cats Was When She Was Cast

Cats star Jennifer Hudson is well aware that the film's trailer left audiences shook when it debuted over the summer, but she thinks the film's CGI human/cat hybrids are "refreshing. It's different, it's new," she told Out at the London press junket for the film. "When you're coming out with something that has never been seen before, people are gradually trying to figure out how they feel about it, you know? But it got their attention, and that's a good thing."

That's one way to look at it!

Hudson, despite being something of a movie musical legend after winning a supporting actress Oscar for her role in Dreamgirls, didn't even know what Cats was when she was tapped for the film.

"It seems as though [these roles] find me in a way," she explained. "Because with Dreamgirls, I remember when they were getting ready to cast for that and everybody kept [saying] Jennifer Hudson for Effie, and I was like, 'Who is Effie?' I knew the music, though, but I didn't know the characters."

The actress had a similar experience with Cats. Director Tom Hooper reached out to tell her he was considering her for the role of Grizabella the Glamour Cat.

"I was like, 'I'm not too familiar with that.'" But when he played her "Memory," the musical's most iconic song, that jogged...well. "I'm like, 'I know 'Memory.'" Girl, who doesn't?

Cats is in theaters December 20.

RELATED | Judi Dench Says Her Cats Character Is Trans