Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage.com Is Alicia Keys' career about to go South? It will if she has anything to say about it.
I'm told that the multi-Grammy winner is on a campaign to land the lead role in Disney's upcoming animated musical, The Frog Princess, set in the South.
How interested is she? So much so that after Keys auditioned, she actually called Disney's studio chief, Dick Cook, directly to let him know how much she wanted the gig, according to a well-placed source. "She did it all herself," the source says. "She got one of his personal numbers and just called him up."
Keys is one of many hopefuls being considered to voice Mandy, a young southern girl living in New Orleans during the roaring '20s Jazz Age. "One of the big questions is if Alicia can do a Southern accent, because she has such that New York voice," my source says.
Keys' movie career is off to a pretty good start. Right now, she's in theaters opposite Ben Affleck and Jeremy Piven in Smokin' Aces, and in April, she has The Nanny Diaries with Scarlett Johansson.
Not only could Frog be a major boost for Keys, it's also history-making because Mandy is, as she's been described, "the first black Disney princess."
Keys has gotten a callback for a second audition, my source says.
Other top contenders, I'm told, include Oscar-nominee Jennifer Hudson and her Dreamgirls costar and Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose.
Frog's composer is music maestro Randy Newman, who is up for a Grammy and an Oscar this year for the song "Our Town," from the animated blockbuster Cars.
Speaking of Grammys, check out what my E! Online cohorts and I think will happen at Sunday's big shebang at We Predict. Go, Justin!