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Sherri Shepherd Puts on Her “Hooker Heels”

The View's Sherri Shepherd talks to BET.com about her role in "One For the Money"

One day last year, Sherri Shepherd learned about a movie audition via Twitter, and made a beeline for The View’s wardrobe closet. “I found a tight miniskirt, an electric-blue tube top, and put on my hooker heels and a long wig and ran out the door,” remembers Shepherd. She got the part, and was thrilled, because she got to be in the screen version of one of her favorite books and play a character she loved. One for the Money is based on the first of 18 novels author Janet Evanovich has written about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, and Shepherd co-stars in it with Katherine Heigl portraying Lula, a "hooker with a heart of gold.”

 

“I’m a big fan of Janet Evanovich and I read One for the Money over seven years ago,” explains Shepherd. “Lula is in 17 of them. I was like, ‘Lord, if they ever make this into the movie, please let me play her,’ This was on my dream board. I didn’t need a body double. I brought my own back fat with me,” laughs Shepherd, who embraced the character’s too-tight streetwalker wardrobe. “It was a lot of fun being able to wear these outfits and not have to wear any Spanx whatsoever,” she says.

 

Some might accuse her of perpetuating a stereotype, but Shepherd doesn’t care. “I think any backlash or to anybody that’s hating on it, I say read the books. Janet Evanovich didn’t write a stereotypical character. She’s not just a hooker. This is a woman who’s been through stuff, and she’s optimistic. She goes through an evolution. She doesn’t stay a hooker.”  In fact, by the end of the movie she’s become a bounty hunter herself, alongside Plum. Shepherd hopes she gets to reprise the role in a sequel that will mirror how the character changes in the novels. “She gets a boyfriend, carries a gun. There’s so many places Lula goes.”

 

One for the Money opens in theaters this Friday.

 

BET.com is your #1 source for Black celebrity news, photos, exclusive videos and all the latest in the world of hip hop and R&B music.

 

 

 (Photo: Donna Ward/Getty Images)

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