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NEW YORK, NY, USA - With rapper/actor Queen Latifah's recent successes including a key role in the award-winnng musical "Chicago," this New Jersey native has become the Queen of Rap and has broken through to mainstream acclaim. While her recent mainstream comedy "Taxi" tanked, her production company, Flav Unit ,has produced several chart-topping rap stars. Now she has turned to producing her first feature film.

Though "Cookout" is not masterpiece of social relevance or intellectual commentary, it does tap into the humorous culture clashes that occur with upwardly mobile success.

G21: WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE GOOD AT COMEDY?

QUEEN LATIFAH: There was a lot of humor growing up in my household but was I comedian-funny? No. I still don't think I'm a comedian -- they're naturally gifted -- but I have a good sense of humor and I realized I have pretty good comedic timing. When I was doing "Living Single," people who had been in the business made the observation, that my timing is good and it's hard to get that sometimes even for the best actor. They don't necessarily have that comedic timing. Little things like that let me know I can do this and then, I just know that I laugh and if something is funny, I'm laughing at it and I'm willing to. I'm not one of those people who has to look pretty all the time in a movie, I'm willing to take chances with stuff and, from "Set It Off" on, it was like this was [the]time to take chances and do things differently. If you're going to go there, you might as well go there.

G21: WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO DO "COOKOUT" AS THE FIRST FEATURE YOU PRODUCED?

QUEEN LATIFAH: One of my good buddies -- the person that actually helped me get into the business, Ramsey Gbelawoe -- wrote the script. And one of our homeboys from [my company] Flav Unit, Shakim [Compere] came up with the concept, because he had gone go to a cookout -- for those who don't know, a cookout is a barbecue [laughter] -- and some of the elements of the story happened. A pro player and his whole family came and some of them were buck wild and trashed the place a little bit; everyone else was cool. You got some people who are used to nice stuff and some who'll tear up anything, so it was like, there's a story in the -- but what's the story?

So we all got together, the Flav Unit crew, and started fleshing out the idea and making it into a complete concept. Once we got that done, we gave it to Ramsey. He actually came in with the best treatment on how to write it; we offered it to a lot of people, but our own homeboy came in with the best one. We had already sold the idea to Lions Gate, and then we got Lance to direct it. He has been down with us for awhile and we like to give opportunities, even though he'd never done a movie before, we felt he could do this, so we gave him a shot.

G21: WHY MAKE THIS KIND OF MOVIE?

QUEEN LATIFAH: We wanted to make fairly inexpensive urban films, but we didn't want to tell the typical 'hood story -- shoot 'em up, bang-bang -- that we'd all seen before. We can tell those stories in our sleep and they've been told well by some people so we didn't need to come along and tell the same story again. We wanted to make a family-orientated comedy; it's an urban film and maybe some people think urban is black, but urban is really people from the city who we can identify with it, so it's not just for black people, it's for Blacks, Latinos, Whites, Asians, Native Americans, everyone.

G21: WERE YOU ALWAYS GOING TO PLAY THE PSYCHO SECURITY GUARD?

QUEEN LATIFAH: I wasn't attached to the movie when we first sold it; I didn't have to be in it. It was just something we thought would be a good idea. I couldn't be in it heavily. The story didn't require me. I'm not one of the main characters and there wasn't really a role for me that required me to be one. Also, I knew I was going to be shooting another movie at the same time, so there was no way I could do two movies where I was really heavy in it at the same time. But this little role was a fun role. This character is off her rocker. I'm like, ok I can come in, play that and have fun. As long as I can have fun then I'll have the energy to do it, but if it's something that's not enjoyable at all, it would drain me, but this was a fun little way to get Queen Latifah in the movie, which, from a business perspective, will help promote it and it was a fun character to play.

G21: DID YOU AD-LIB YOUR ROLE?

QUEEN LATIFAH: Little stuff, like when the little girl walks away. I asked them for a gold tooth and I'm not used to wearing one so I started sucking on the thing because it was in my mouth. The character sort of developed on the spot. I knew who the character was but it took me a couple of hours to get it right on the set because I was trying to switch gears from my role in "TAXI" [her next major studio film]. Up until that point, I was all producer and then it was, okay, time to act, so it took a minute to work it out.

G21: DID YOU HAVE ANY REFERENCE POINTS IN YOUR HEAD?

QUEEN LATIFAH: Any fake cop. Anybody who's harassed you in a supermarket, a clothing store, an airport; there are plenty of them. A lot are actually nice, but some of them are like, "Turn around. Do this. Take your shoes off" and they really get off on that. So I figured my character would have a little bit of a power trip; the difference was that she actually had a weapon at her disposal and she's trying to control herself not to use it.

G21: YOU OFTEN PLAY STRONG CHARACTERS, THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS. SHE'S MORE SATIRICAL.

QUEEN LATIFAH: When [this character's] not harassing people, she's on the phone with her boyfriend who cheats on her relentlessly but she loves him to death and is not letting him go; if he thinks he's going anywhere -- he's not. She's just kind of off, and she loves him despite the crazy stuff he does. We all know people like that, where there was a screw loose but you can still function in society; they've got a place in this crazy country of ours,too. So there were plenty of places to pull this character from.

With some of my future roles, I won't be quite as strong. You can find strength in vulnerability; some people who aren't very outspoken can be strong. You'll see that in some of the future characters that I will play in upcoming movies.

G21: HOW DIFFERENT WAS IT DOING "TAXI"?

QUEEN LATIFAH: It's a completely different movie, but the one thing that was the same was that I was tuned up for both pictures. I was informed, so to speak, so I could go and be in "Cook Out," even though I'm totally switching to another character. They were both comedy, so I could stay in the comedy place. It's different when you're doing "Set It Off" and then you're doing "Living Single", you got to go from sad to happy to gangsta to happy again [laughter].

It's almost schizophrenic and that's where my acting coach comes in, not to show me how to act, but to help me switch from Queen Latifah to Dana Owens, to the singing girl to whomever I need to be at that moment to just bring me back to whatever moment I'm in.

G21: HOW WAS IT SHUTTING DOWN CHUNKS OF NYC FOR "TAXI"?

QUEEN LATIFAH: That was fun. It's always good to not have traffic to deal with. The driving shots were very hard. When we shot "Taxi," it was the perfect storm of traffic. The UN Grand Assembly came to town; every delegate from every country in the world was here. Every street was shut down, it was damn near impossible getting a lot of the shots off. We lost a lot of money in NYC, to be honest with you, trying to nail those shots down at that time. Maybe a couple of months earlier, we'd have been fine, but that's what you've got to deal with ... I loved it, anyhow.

G21: WHAT'S YOUR ADVICE TO SOMEONE BREAKING INTO THE INDUSTRY?

QUEEN LATIFAH: Hustle, hustle, hustle. Be seen where ever you can. Do as many plays, talent shows, casting calls, auditions, whatever you need to be seen and get a break. You never know when you might click in someone's mind and they'll say "I know so-and-so doesn't have a reputation but I'll give them a break because I liked their performance and they can pull it off."

You also have to be as savvy as you can, it's a tough business and you can't think that everybody is out there to help you. You have to make them work for you and you have to do your own homework at the same time. You have to meet with as many directors, writers and producers on your own. You have to do your own work, network and package yourself. "Package" is a word that people don't really understand but when you take Queen Latifah and put her in a part with Angela Basset or in one with Wesley Snipes and now you have us all together, let's go sell this concept.

When you start to link up people, it makes it a lot easier to do some stuff. And of course, have good lawyers and accountants -- just don't let anyone else sign your checks.

G21: DO YOU EMBRACE BEING A ROLE MODEL?

QUEEN LATIFAH: It depends on what I'm being a role model for. If I'm a role model for staying positive, and being imperfect, and keeping God in your life, and being comfortable with who you are, [then okay]. It's about being comfortable with who you are. For me, I think that shows through and says something to other people. It doesn't matter what size you are, it's the confidence you exude.

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