Marc Malkin

Melissa Moseley

Queen Latifah didn't exactly turn into a ragin' Cajun while in Louisiana shooting Mad Money, but she wasn't thrilled with the overzealous paparazzi on the hunt for pics of her costar Katie Holmes and baby Suri.

“There would be photographers trying to get real close, so you just sort of get protective, especially when someone has a baby,” Latifah says of their time shooting in Shreveport. “I don’t know if it’s a woman thing, but we watched out for her.”

Mad Money, a comedy about three women (Latifah, Holmes and Diane Keaton) who plot to rob the Federal Reserve Bank, is Holmes' first acting gig since hooking up with Tom Cruise. It's due to hit theaters in January.

Despite being one of the most photographed women in the world, Latifah says Holmes couldn’t have been more real: “She’s cool. She’s really down to earth.”

I got some one-on-one phone time with Latifah, 37, while she was in Detroit, one of many stops on her just launched nationwide tour supporting her new album of vocals, Trav’lin Light. 

Trav’lin Light and her first album of vocals—2004’s Dana Owens Album—has expanded her fan base. “You see everyone in the audience,” she says. “Black, white, young, old, gay, straight.”

Verve Records

Latifah, who earned an Oscar nomination for her work as Matron Mama Morton in Chicago and showed off her singing chops again earlier this year as Motormouth Maybelle in the movie adaptation of Hairspray, says she’s approached on a regular basis about possible Broadway projects. Sure, she wants to hit the Great White Way, but she won't do just any project.

“It has to be right,” she says. “Doing a show eight times a week, you have to really love it and want it. I have so much respect for people on Broadway for that. That’s a commitment, a big commitment. I want it to be special.”

She recently saw Wicked, the musical about the early lives of the witches of Oz, in which a young Glenda attempts to give a makeover to her green-skinned friend Elphaba, who later becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.

“I could use a good makeover,” she says with a laugh, when I ask whom she’d play in the Tony Award-winning show. “So, probably the bad witch. The bad girls are always more fun anyway.” 

Next on the movie front is a remake of All of Me, the 1984 comedy starring Lily Tomlin as a dying a millionaire who accidentally has her soul transferred into the body of her lawyer, played by Steve Martin.

Latifah’s waiting for a final script, so her male costar hasn’t been cast—yet. Top of her list? Will Ferrell. 

After the Trav’lin tour wraps in late November, Latifah plans to take her family on their annual Christmas vacation. She also says she wants to get back to one of her favorite pastimes—riding a motorcycle. She’s missing her time on the hog and says she is only able to bring bicycles on the tour.

George Clooney may want to give Latifah a call for some pointers, because, she boasts, no one has to worry about her taking a spill or being hounded by the paparazzi. “They can’t keep up with me,” she says. “I lose them in a couple of minutes.”