A fatal fire! An overdose! A shooting! Jealousy! Regret! The deliciously soapy Star is back to finish off its second season. After making fans wait three months after the cliffhanger filled mid-season finale, the spring premiere didn’t waste any time resolving cliffhangers.
So now that we’re wrapping up some plot lines and starting others, Jude Demorest, the Star of Star, sat down for a Cocktail Conversation to talk about her life changing gig and why death on Star isn’t as final as it is for the rest of us in real life!
Shining Star
It’s a good thing we have a DVR, because it feels like every scene we need to pause, rewind and go ‘what?!?!’ And we’re not alone. “It’s a lot I’m very sorry,” Jude told us of what went down on the show’s comeback. As for why we had to wait so bloody long? “We had to get it all prepared for you. Make it right.”
If the first half of the season seemed like a lot of buildup, that’s by design. And for the four and a half million fans that stuck around, Jude told the Cocktail that it’s all about to pay off. “The storyline and the character development has been really amazing in the second half of the season we’re all about to see.”
Split Decisions
We asked Jude, who was in a very playful mood, about her reactions when she got new scripts. Turns out the writers are keeping our star on her toes. “I was reading and I couldn’t believe what happens for Star. The girls, they go in unexpected directions.”
And while that’s about as close to a spoiler as she’d reveal, she did offer a little insight, telling the Cocktail “I think people will be happy with that. And mad. But happy.”
Death & Taxes? Well, Maybe Just Taxes
Star is giving the old adage ‘the only sure things in life are death and taxes,’ a run for its money. While knowing she couldn’t give spoilers, we coyly asked if she had recently seen various actors on the show. She saw through our rum driven ruse, but did give us this, “On our show and with (show creator) Lee Daniels, people, they come back from the dead, you see them in dreams, they haunt you. You never know. Somebody dies that’s not necessarily the end of their story line. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re dead either. “So you never know, truly any of the characters that you think you might not see.. you never know.”
A Star Among All-Stars
Jude is gorgeous, talented, and a the titular Star of the show.. and not even close to being the STAR of the show. With Queen Latifah, Benjamin Bratt, starring every week, and guest stars like Patti LaBelle, Naomi Campbell, and Lenny Kravitz to name a few, the show is overstocked on headliners. Lesser divas would feel threatened. Not Jude who, at 26 years of age, is experienced enough that she can hang in the big leagues but confident enough to learn from the decades of experience surrounding her. “It has been one long master class. It’s been a crash course.”
And on a music driven show, like it’s pseudo-companion series Empire, it’s not enough to just sing or just act. “It’s been amazing because we do everything on the show. We sing, dance, stab people. So I’ve really gotten to use all of my tools. That’s been awesome.”
Jude didn’t just come out of nowhere. She’s been performing and writing music for years. And she’s keeping it up when she has time. And now that the show is wrapped until July, she has time. “When we’re filming, I won’t. I can’t. I can’t say I have time then but I have time now.” We’ll see what happens in my hiatus because all I’m gonna do is write.”
The Critic’s Cocktail Recommendation
A Shooting Star. It’s coconut rum on the rocks gives it a light fruity feel, perfect for washing down plot twists and seeing ghosts!
Cheers!
Critic's Cocktail 