Erykah Badu

December 29, 1999
Web posted at: 2:12 p.m. EST (1912 GMT)

By Donna Freydkin
Reporting for CNN Interactive

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Erykah Badu doesn't exactly make an effort to go incognito.

The singer-actress turns up for an interview in an enormous woven hat that would put Dr. Seuss to shame. She wears an oversize, intricately patterned shirt and sports long dreadlocks. Her diminutive neck is wrapped in beaded necklaces and huge silver bracelets are on each wrist.

But Badu, who played the pivotal role of Rose Rose in this year's film adaptation of John Irving's bestseller "The Cider House Rules," says she's no limelight-grabbing superstar. Case in point: "Cider House" director Lasse Hallstrom had no idea that a Grammy-winning singer was auditioning for the role. Even when he cast her in the part, the director says, he didn't know Badu had a hit album, the 1997 "Baduizm," to her credit.

"I think someone else told him," Badu says. "He didn't even know who I was. It made me feel a little proud. I had the opportunity to be brand new. I felt that someone appreciates me and wanted me for my work, not my reputation."

And that didn't hurt the former Erica Wright in the least.

"As a rock star or an entertainer, you always stand out," she says. "You're always the tallest, the biggest. I don't know if anyone ever finds their place in it, so usually they lose themselves somewhere in there and they become some kind of superstar. I don't want to do that. I had the chance to recreate myself and put a new battery in my back."

Badu sat down to explain.

Badu as Rose Rose in "The Cider House Rules"

Soul sister

CNN: Your first album was called "Baduizm." Is that your personal philosophy on life?

Badu: "Baduizm" -- it took me my whole life to write that album. It took me forever. Everything that I learned forever is there. "Izm" in hip-hop culture is marijuana, and izm gets you high. So "Baduizm" is supposed to be a natural high -- my way of lifting everybody.

CNN: You had roles in last year's "Blues Brothers 2000" and now "Cider House," yet you seem pretty ambivalent about moving over into acting. That's odd, given that singers including Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston don't seem to have the same reservations. Why the hesitation?

Badu: My agent sent me lots of scripts. After my first video, she wanted me to move over to acting. This was around February 1997. She sent me scripts and scripts and I sort of tried to blow her off.

CNN: But why?

	CLIPS FROM "THE   CIDER HOUSE RULES"
"Good night" 1.4Mb QuickTime movie "History" 2.3Mb QuickTime movie

Badu: I have a tremendous responsibility in my culture and in my community as a recording artist and a messenger, at a time when music was at a point where it was very monotonous. I didn't want to confuse or unravel everything that I've worked so hard to crochet by taking an acting role. Because it's sometimes difficult for me to understand my path or my plan, so I've decided that I just won't have one. I'll just go by what I feel, instead of what the money says.

CNN: In the movie, you play a young woman who is impregnated by her father and ends up having an abortion. As a mother, was that role difficult to play?

Badu: Being a mother changed a lot of things for me, because I'd never loved like that. So anything that has to do with children is very sacred to me. Immediately, my heart goes in that direction.

CNN: Was your son Seven was on the set with you?

Badu: He had his own trailer. One of my reasons for not doing this movie was that my baby has to have space. I was thinking of every excuse, so they gave the baby a trailer. I was breast-feeding at the time, and they were very patient with me.

CNN: So, no more offerings from Erykah Badu, actress?

Badu: I'm really concentrating on my second studio album right now. That (film) bug hasn't bit me yet. It's just the artist in me. There's always a fear that I'll become pop or something like that. Because as soon as that happens, what you're saying is no longer important. It's just selling records. So I want to make sure that I put a lot of care in what I do. So I try to be real careful in which way I walk and move.