‘Jane the Virgin’: Best of the Cast on ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’

did you always want to act oh that's a great question truthfully acting acting felt really far away from me I was uh I was a bit of an ugly duckling and uh my dad was in my dad I'm like you think so okay this is the perfect place to celebrate because you have a 40th Milestone birthday coming up I do yes I too oh my goodness I doo I'm very excited about it because I feel like I have a baby boy he just turned thank you so much and I feel like oh there he is oh my baby I love you I'm going to start leaking um I listen all the momies get that right I love I um I feel like I'm coming into a really incredible chapter of my life like I definitely didn't think I was going to love motherhood as much as I do and obviously I knew I would love motherhood but I feel like there was so much in me that was afraid of becoming a mom like would I lose myself or career or it's all I want to do right I just want to be with him all the time I miss him right this second and so I'm very excited because 40 is just a number I feel like I'm still 22 I still see the same person yeah yes it's so wild and then now you have a baby to share yeah I do oh God that's beautiful congratulations so are you the kind of mom that just like blow up oh my God he is so adorable stop it look at those arms don't you want to eat them yes I do oh my goodness look let me tell you now enjoy while you can my son is just backstage and he up here now and everybody like oh we thought he was still little it goes so fast embrace it we don't understand that when we in the middle of that phase we think we have a forever but then once they get to like 12 and 13 it's like who is this man where these kids coming from so embrace it cuz that's just a fun phase right there like okay so for me as a mom back then it's like okay you want to throw everything at them like I took my kid to Disney World couldn't ride no ride what they just want are you that type of Mom where you want to do everything and throw the big parties and all of that stuff right now oh yes yes I go hard you know what I'm saying like I'm like this is my one I'm going to and it might be my only one okay so I'm I think so I think maybe this is it and I come from a really big family so to have just one is everybody's super surprised by that but I because of that I'm just I mean his first birthday was like his first wedding you know I was like here we go yes yes oh you made lead I'm like I'm like this is we're going to we're going to really do it up it was raining it was like the worst day of February and so I got wedding tents to make sure he had his outdoor soft play and there was like a hundred people everybody that has helped me on my journey yeah was there it's a celebration for everyone it was a celebration for every that's how I felt I was felt like I was saying thank you to all the people that helped me raise him thus far saying thank you to the fact that okay now why I can how is it that you could feel tears rising in your body that the week that week of his life a year prior was the scariest week of my life he was in the niku and it was just a celebration that we were there right we were there a year later and he was with us and he's healthy and he's vibrant and he's just wonderful so I was like I have to I have to celebrate this definitely look how precious he is he's so little he's so much bigger now oh my see how quick it goes even you just said that just looking at it right I know it's wild wow it's so wild you have a whole little person and then you said you were going to have birth at home originally but you had difficulties tell us about that yeah I it's so funny it's like the saying you know you tell god um you want to make God laugh you tell them your plans and that was exactly it um I I just thought I was going to like give birth in my tub with like you know like some rose pedals and like beautiful music playing and um we had no music it was completely silent I did 13 hours at the house got to 10 cm dislocated my hips um women are crazy it's back in it's like everything's back together somehow some way and then we had to go to the hospital and then it was like five more hours of pushing and then he lost oxygen in the in the pushing pushing f I don't I'm not a doctor y'all I'm an actor I haven't even played one on TV so I can't even get to pretend like words but you're a mama but I'm a mama yeah and he came out and he had to go through this incredible experience the I just I give my life to all the doctors and the nurses at Cedar ci all the niku nurses I mean yes now you have your blessing just it was such a blessing it was such a blessing and it was wild because I had met um an incredible woman who I had spoken to before going into labor she is very intuitive she like speaks to your ancestors and she um if for anybody who you know uh lives by that journey and she had told me she was like uh wow there's a lot of uh Angels around you there's like Warriors at your hip odd right that one of my hips went out Warriors at your hip and there's two more at the base of your feet and you know and your grandmother's with you oh I'm getting chills I'm getting your grandmother's with you and your great grandmother and all the women are just crowding around you that have like moved on and and you're just you're just covered in angels you're covered in angels and I thought oh okay then that means like this is going to be like easy like I got this I'm covered in angels and then by the fifth day in the NICU I was like oh here are all the Angels W here they are they're like you told me I was covered because there were so many they were there that helped me through that experience the birth oh my good I was like oh okay yeah yeah I was covered in angels chilling that was wild God always got somebody to pull you through that is for sure you executive produce and start and not dead yet season two is just premiered now your character can see the dead people tell us about that um it's actually so beautiful the way they crafted this show because it is this woman that is going through life on One path and she thinks everything is you know exactly the way she wants it to be and then the rug gets pulled underneath her and she's kind of got to re invigorate her journey and it goes on a different path and you know the idea of like not being married yet not having children yet not being there yet not being whatever successful fill in the blank not being that yet and I think that we live in a culture where it's like you got to be this by this time and this by this time and the truth is it's like like I said like life has its way of you know throwing you off course so she writes she's an obituary writer and the people that she writes about they come back to teach her lessons in life you know she is failing and makes mistakes and they remind her I guess essentially what they wish they had done while they were here and I think about how great how much I would love I guess at times for my grandma to come back and just be like oh maybe don't do this with your son or maybe do you know it's like just to have that opportunity oh there's my grand okay now I'm definitely um and so have your a moment I understand cuz I love my grand too yes did they tell you to put these for me no but I understand is real I love my grand too yeah she's just the greatest I'll take they're so special right um yes she's AB the absolute best and she's still here with me but it's just such a fun show because it's funny and it's light but at the same time it's meaningful and it makes you reflect on the things that you wish you had known and since you're here you can still like work at it you can still do it you can still implement it you can still try you know you can still go for it beautiful message I love that fun it's very fun okay so listen I went ghost hunting last season yeah people do that as a hobby so uh and I don't know if I'll do it again but do you have any like regular Hobbies what's some of your hobbies besides chasing my son now full-time hobby I love to SSA dance I was a SSA dancer growing up oh we got Sansa dancers in the audience oh my goodness yes yes I'm a big fan of Sasa dancing you you know J I love to try will you teach me a little bit Sala let's go we more room no we could take all the room over there let's take all okay I got my good shoes on you got oh yeah okay I'm going to try come on teach me a what we got what I got to do okay what I got it's real easy real quick this the fast s we're going to go back together front together so back let's bring your one foot back come to the center one foot forward to the center oh you got this boom boom he I got it oh you got it let me get it again back together front together oh ah yes and you add a little hip in there Bang bangang everybody we got where are we all dancing I got it t oh yes and you can go anywhere you want Little shake and Shake together front together back together front together back together I got it to you oh my God thank you so much for sto that yes tell me about you you started out in in Mexico and you were a singer first I was a singer first can now why was it first why it first because well my mom my mom is from Brazil okay and she's an overall artist she paints and sings and compos whatever and so it's very difficult to to stay away from the Artistry when it's given to you by the umbilical cord it's yeah you you just cannot walk away from that that is true exactly so I started I wanted to be music first but then life threw at me some opportunities to act and here we are ah you had many many gifts I don't I don't know about that but thank you okay now you know singing is is my first love as well and I see on here you studied Opera uh with aena suti an Italian uh teacher that she lived in Mexico okay so we started Opera yeah wow it's very demanding it's very demanding you find well yeah I understand that I I was working on the song Ness and Dorma oh oh it took me about a week to learn one word it was in Italian but then applying the Opera so I can relate that's why I'm like oh tell me more about your Opera but you but you are a very gifted uh singer no you are you are listen so when you said when you said it took me a week I kind of I cannot don't believe you what because you could do that song in 2 minutes if you want right yeah yeah I had tons of teachers okay and and your father didn't want you to do entertainment no not at all my father was a businessman so he was like you have to pursue business and you have to do the and I'm like but I but I don't feel happy I don't find happiness in business and sigu Freud used to say that that uh a human should feel the same happiness and satisfaction um at their job as they felt with their toys and never heard that yeah and not many people have the privilege I mean some some some jobs are very tough and some jobs are very difficult but some of us we have the privilege and the gift to be to to do what we love that that's a passion I would say your passion and to me the definition of a career when you can do what you love to make your living 100% so I agree with that as well okay you got a lot of big things going on you're getting ready to celebrate your wi anniversary uh not not yet because okay we have many weddings my wife and wedding yes what does that mean yeah well we have the the the Green Card wedding the one don't don't don't go there please let me expl I've never heard you say it is the love of my in Mexico we said Visa the love of my Visa no no stop it no it's um we got married because I was doing the Green Card process for my family so my immigration lawyer was like would you want to include your family I'm like sure and then they were like well USCIS is asking about your marriage certificate I'm like just tell them we got married at a ceremony with a shean man and he was like no dummy doesn't know you need a paper you need like so we went dressed like that believe it or not with our daughter Elena to the Ventura County Clerk and we got married so of course was Wai every single red flag that you can imagine for for immigration because we we filed the green card and the authorities were like oh he got married yesterday and then fil the green card so they thought I I had purchased my wife but I didn't I didn't because are we keeping up everybody yeah okay because she's Mexican and if I dare to say something like that I will be in trouble and then we had a marriage a normal wedding okay like a normal a party with a reception and we went to the church and we did we did it right but that was only for the green card oh that's my beautiful wife she is gorgeous so people know you from Jane the Virgin did you yes some people she does she does did you always want to act oh that's a great question truthfully acting acting felt really far away from me I was uh I was a bit of an ugly duckling and uh my dad was in my dad I'm like you think so okay uh well I if only you had a picture of me when I was 13 and covered in acne that I gave myself and you know um but I was always the friend of the of the guy who all the girls liked and I never really had dates to the dances um and I just I was just insecure and I and I think that I never allowed myself the opportunity to dream that it could actually be possible I think I'd always wanted to be an actor um but honestly I'm grateful that it wasn't this thing that I just always dreamed about because back then I think I would have been dreaming about it for the wrong reasons I think I would have been wanting to be an actor for maybe the fame and honestly and what that would do back then for like little Justin is it would make me feel better about myself it'd be feeling a hole that no amount of Fame ever could feel so I'm grateful that I didn't get a chance to dream um and then it kind of and then it it kind of happened naturally and it really took me by surprise and even I was sitting backstage and I'm like wait how am I here how am I I'm I'm about to go sit there but Jennifer like is this real and I always have those moments of just being so grateful that it's even existing I understand that I have that every day like this my show so I get it if you like this video smash that like button and subscribe to the Jennifer Hudson Show YouTube channel check your local listings or visit Jennifer Hudson show.com to see when you can watch four episodes in your area and don't forget to sign up for the newsletter