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Really, they just shouldn't make any musical without Queen Latifah. Chicago rocked largely due to her majesty belting out those old school tunes. Rent and The Producers needed something like that. So Hairspray got the Queen back in the act. She plays Motormouth Maybelle, the token black maven at an all white dance show. Amid all the high spirited singing and dancing, she manages to effect social change against segregationist Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer). And you thought Hairspray was just about a dude in drag.

CraveOnline: Hairspray actually deals with a lot of tough racial issues. Particularly with Michelle Pfeiffer being the queen segregationist, was it ever uncomfortable playing those issues?

Queen Latifah: No. If you don't commit to it and jump into it, and just go full out on it, then it's not only going to be a bad performance but it's not going to really get the point across of how ridiculous things like sizeism and racism are. So yeah, she had to be the great villain, Velma von Tussle, what a good name. I think she was amazing and she's so not like that in real life that it was funny. She's so sweet and giving in real life and sensitive, even so like for her to play this role, I thought she rocked it too.

CraveOnline: Was there a lot of laughter on the set?

Queen Latifah: Yes, because she would be losing it. She has to do all these takes where she's just like UGGGHHH, things like that and it was just funny. How many ways can you do it? She's doing different ways every time. She just made me laugh. It's funny. It's a comedy so I'm like trying not to laugh at some of the stuff that was really funny. John kind of made me laugh a lot too. He's funny.

CraveOnline: Since this musical has a real message about racism, how do you think movies express messages in ways that books or newspaper articles can't?

Queen Latifah: Movies are entertaining. At the end of the day, you want to entertain someone and you want to keep their attention. You can read a book and pick it up and put it down and an article you can do the same way. But you're here for the two hours to watch this movie so hopefully you're captured by what you see on the screen. And I think the reason a lot of movies can penetrate is because you see yourself in them. You see real life scenarios. I was watching Knocked Up, people think that's just a big comedy, just a big joke but I found so many relatable issues, relatable themes in there. Just relationships and losing your identity sometimes in a relationship. I can relate to that guy who she thought he was cheating but he really just wanted to play fantasy football, just wanted to be one of the guys sometimes. I've seen my friends go through that, it's happened to me before but movies can have a way of capturing your attention, especially when you see someone you know or yourself in them.

CraveOnline: And Hairspray is like that?

Queen Latifah: Oh, definitely Hairspray. One of the things, we talk about the racism, when we talk about the sizeism but I relate to the confidence that Motormouth tries to get people to feel confidence. She has to be a pretty confident woman to own this record store, to be a host on TV, to have all these kids think that she's actually cool enough to hang out with. And to encourage Edna to just be herself. "It's all right, girl, just be you, do you." I think a lot of people make bad decisions when they don't have high confidence. When their self esteem is low, they're willing to tolerate stuff that they shouldn't. Women will stay in an abusive relationship when they have low self esteem. A man will create one when he has low self esteem. A lot of what happens, a lot of the ills of the world probably have a lot to do with how a person feels about themselves on the inside. So I think Hairspray is one of those movies that kind of bring a little bit of attention to that and try to get people to step out and be confident about themselves. Don't give up. Try. It's okay. They might close that door today but another one will open. Just keep moving forward.

CraveOnline: Would you have liked to live in the '60s?

Queen Latifah: I don't know, the '60s were kinda hardcore. I probably would have been getting hosed down or bit by some dogs, but they were also pretty damn creative. No, I'm cool living right where I'm at. I'm going to reap the benefits that you already lived there.

CraveOnline: You've done '40s style music in Chicago, '60s in this and your own hip hop. Is it easy for you to go between styles and eras of music?

Queen Latifah: Yeah, because I'm actually not human. I'm a time jumper from planet Elam. Yeah, I like music. It can be from whatever era. It's just something that beats within me, so going back and forth between different types of music, and I watched a lot of musicals growing up. I practiced that kind of singing. I didn't really know what to do with it. I lived in Newark, I mean, what the hell was I going to do? It wasn't like I was going to perform much of that. I mean, we did our school plays. That was about the only chance to get to sing songs like that but now it's all paying off because here come the musicals again and I get a chance to have some fun with a lot of these songs.

CraveOnline: You've done so much already, what's left to do in your career?

Queen Latifah: Sleep. I hear about it. It's this elusive thing that people tell me about. Mostly people that don't work, they know about it. They do a lot of it. People who drink a lot. What do I want to do? I don't know, I want to do some kind of smart thriller, action kind of project. I want to get to shoot a gun again. That's always fun for me because other than the gun range, you don't do that in real life. And I wouldn't mind doing some type of sci-fi. I like doing sci-fi. So some sort of big, non-cheesy, smart kind of science fiction thing. Maybe not a Star Wars but something in that vein could be kind of fun.

CraveOnline: Maybe a Blade Runner type of movie?

Queen Latifah: Yeah, Blade Runner, something like that was cool. What was the Schwarzenegger thing, Total Recall, stuff like that. There's not a whole bunch of those floating around so something like that would be a dream come true.

CraveOnline: Could you develop that yourself?

Queen Latifah: I could if I had the great script. I damn sure could get it made, I'm almost 100% sure of that. Yeah, maybe I should call Tom Cruise, see what he got going on. "Got anything good? Can I kill somebody in one of your movies? Let me turn into a Transformer."

CraveOnline: Do you also like sentimental movies?

Queen Latifah: [Gagging noise] No, I'm just kidding. I definitely do. I like a good tear jerker but I like having fun too. And I've done stuff, like I just did Life Support for HBO and that was definitely a tear jerker. But I like to mix it up. I never like to do the same thing over and over because it is boring. It can get boring.

CraveOnline: You're kind of like the female Morgan Freeman in Arctic Tale. How did you hook up with that?

Queen Latifah: They just called and my agent told me she had a project that kind of could be in the vein of March of the Penguins and I'm a big National Geographic fan anyway. I watch it at home all the time. So the way that they do movies and the way that the footage, the kind of footage they're able to get always amazed me. So to be a part of something like that was kind of also my own way of helping out with the environmental cause, maybe sort of bringing more light to people or bringing more attention to that entire cause because when you personalize it and make it about this cute little bear cub and this cute little walrus, it makes it more personal. Sometimes we just don't get it. People don't really make that connection. When you make things personal and you make them entertaining, people kind of can connect to it. I think it's the same way people will connect to the messages in Hairspray. It's entertaining but there are some messages in there and it's kind of maybe because we don't knock you over the head with it and tell you what to do that you could probably accept it a little more.

CraveOnline: When you see today's young pop stars cutting up, what advice would you give them?

Queen Latifah: Most of young Hollywood is not cutting up though. Most of young Hollywood is doing all right.

CraveOnline: Then how about those three or four who always make the news?

Queen Latifah: But they're young. They probably just need to take it down a minute. Back up, take a step, look in the mirror, make sure you're all right. Hire a damn driver. We all have to learn the hard way sometimes but it's okay to ride in the backseat sometimes. It's really all right. Designate a driver. That's what I got to say to the young people because you can't tell them, "Don't do this, don't do that." We all did it. We all tried things. That's what life is about: learning, experiencing. You don't learn sometimes unless you fall on your face but you don't want to fall on your face too many times on the same things. You want to recognize when you have a problem dealing with something and just ask for help. I think most people will be compassionate to that idea but they also have to realize a lot of people are looking at them as role models. How do you want to use it? Do you want to use it for the greater good or do you want to use it for a bunch of wasted stuff? Yeah, come do this. I'm not saying that they do drugs or something but if they did, that's not what you want to show. Smoking a cigarette? Hmm, it's cool, she's smoking. Maybe I should smoke. I used to smoke and I wish it wasn't so freaking cool and I wasn't trying to be cool. Because that's why I wound up smoking and having to quit one of the hardest habits you can break. It's a bitch quitting smoking and it tears your freaking lungs up. So I don't know.