Beyonce Too "Bougie" For Etta James Role?

Legendary soul singer Etta James recently spoke out publicly in response to news Beyoncé will play her in the movie Cadillac Records.

After learning that Beyoncé had been cast to portray her in the upcoming picture Cadillac Records, James told the New York Post’s Page Six she is pleased with the decision.

“It’s a privilege and an honor to have somebody like that girl,” James said. “I don’t think she looks like me, but that’s all right. They can fix that up.”

James also warned that the role may be a difficult stretch for the multi-platinum starlet, since she was a little less refined than Beyoncé.

“Oh my god, she’s going to have a hill to climb, because Etta James ain’t been no angel!” James confessed.

James has already offered to help Beyoncé meet the challenge by opening up about her life – at least to some extent.

“I can tell Beyoncé some things; some of the things I might not tell her,” James, who overcame an addiction to heroin, said. “I wasn’t as bougie as she is, she’s bourgeois. She knows how to be a lady, she’s like a model. I wasn’t like that… I smoked in the bathroom in school, I was kinda arrogant, so those are some of the things I would want to tell her.”

Etta James also noted a difference in singing style between herself and Beyoncé:

“I have my own way of putting those songs over, and I was just wondering if Beyoncé could, and my son said, ‘They’re thinking about how she looks, but Mama, she can really sing.'”

James has also promised to work with the former Destiny’s Child singer on nailing those special nuances.

“I kinda have a man’s voice,” the 70-year-old James admits. “It’s a contralto, more bluesy, religious. I would really like to work with her on that.

As previously reported, Cadillac Records will also star Adrien Brody in the role of music exec Leonard Chess, as well as Cedric the Entertainer and Jeffrey Wright. Beyonce also recently signed on as the film’s executive producer. Shooting on Cadillac Records is scheduled to start on March 10 in New Jersey, with two days on location in Mississippi.

Source: Sohh