The Academy award winner and singer Jennifer Hudson sat down with W magazine in a candid interview on her role on Spike Lee’s film Chi-Raq and her personal experience with gun violence.

Despite her numerous achievements in the film industry such as winning an Academy Award for her role as Effie White in Dreamgirls, a Grammy for her self-titled debut album, and now a recurring character on TV’s hottest show, Empire.

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Playing a dramatic role in Spike Lee’s film Chi-Raq, in theaters now, the former American Idol contestant reveals the reason why it has becomes one of her difficult decisions to make in playing the role given to her.

"This is reality for me,” the star admitted. “This is my life. A part of my life. And I definitely had that moment of like, ‘Are you serious?' But when I really thought about it, I understood why he came to me and I thought, ‘You know what? It's worth me telling my story so that hopefully no one else has a story like this to tell.' The film we're doing is trying to save my city, as my mother said, take care of home. So for that reason I was like, ‘Okay, I get it, it's worth doing.' But I don't think it's anything I will ever, ever revisit again."

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According to E! News, if there wasn't enough emotional conflict in the film, it opened in theaters after two horrific instances of gun violence in America. This sparked a candid and honest conversation with the star concerning the continuing problem of gun violence in the nation.

"If we didn't have these issues, I don't think a movie like that would have needed to be made,” she told the magazine. That's the point of making it, to make people pay attention and say, ‘Guys, we have to start somewhere.' And it's not just the city of Chicago. It's everywhere. It's a bad time right now, no matter where we look. Kids can't go to school, people can't go to church, you can't go to the movies. It's like, what are we doing to ourselves? What's happening? We're acting like animals.”

The 34-year-old continued, “It's unfortunate that things are this way, but it's not going to change unless we do something about it. Even in filming the movie, there were times where more and more incidents kept happening. And Spike kept writing it into the movie. Those who don't get it, it's like, how don't you get it when this is what the issue is? And if you do have a problem with it, have a solution to come along with it. What plan do you have? How do you not try? And what are we supposed to do—just kill each other? It's a scary time no matter who you are, where you go, what color you are, where you live, honey.”

Lee's film—which also stars Samuel L. Jackson, LaLa Anthony and Angela Basset—centers around the women of the community agreeing to withhold sex from their gang-affiliated boyfriends in an effort to stop all of the bloodshed. For this reason, the famed director received some backlash from critics, who believed the women's roles in the film were sexist, E! News wrote.

Tags
Jennifer Hudson, Spike Lee, Gun violence