“Yeah, the idea of it was really cool,” Dana Owens admits, when asked about her initial thoughts of playing the voice of a prehistoric creature in the sure-shot Spring blockbuster “Ice Age: The Meltdown”. “To get to play a character who is a wholly mammoth who thinks she’s a possum—that’s my kinda role! It’s always fun to get to do something like this. This stuff is timeless. The kids in your family get to look at it and say, ‘Look at Auntie Dana!’ It’s nice.”

We bet it is. Owens, who goes by Queen Latifah most days, is enjoying a really nice life right now. The star of “Last Holiday” and “Bringing Down the House” has two other anticipated movies, “Stranger than Fiction” and “Hairspray 2”, in the works. Of course, all of the acting comes in addition to the Cover Girl promotions, Pizza Hut ads and film producing. Oh, and it says here that Queen Latifah also used to be into rap music, so it only makes sense that the 36-year-old artist has a new album and tour proposed for the summer. Here the Queen shares her thoughts on fixing hip hop, loving high school and voting for “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” at the Oscars.

Did your hip hop background help any with the mammoth voice?
I think it helped in terms of the timing and the energy of being able to work in a recording studio and not feel claustrophobic. You’re still able to use your imagination even though you’re in a recording studio. We have to do that anyway when we write records. You imagine all this stuff and then you go in there and put it down in this lil’ controlled environment. That really did help.

There are a couple of musical numbers in Ice Age: The Meltdown from others but nothing from you.
No song from me. But did you see those two numbers! Those were two good songs. When I saw them, I was like, “Daaang!” There were no songs at first. I was like, “No songs in this movie?” They should have given me one. They probably thought they’d have to pay me a billion dollars. All of that other stuff comes into it. They probably cancelled themselves out of it before they even came to me.

So, you were purposely trying to distance yourself from the music?
Nah. It definitely wasn’t my influence. I like the songs that are there. I like the fact that it’s not overly musical.

You’ve got movies and music and make-up and all these things going. What keeps you motivated?
[The loveable Ice Age character] Scrat. Scrat is my motivation. If Scrat can die for what he loves and fight another day, I think I can do anything. Nah, anything that I feel passionate about, I’m gonna go for. That’s pretty much where I am. As long as I keep thinking of ways to challenge myself and [come with] new ideas with my company [I’m happy]. There’s a lot more to be done, believe it or not. Continued on page 2 »