Carey: We start the movie and we see little Billie and her mom singing, and we realize there's a dysfunction going on and her mom's unstable. She gets taken away from her mother and ends up in a foster home. Then, we meet her two friends, Louise and Roxanne, who are played by Da Brat and Tia Texada. They're her extended family. It's Billie's journey to understand why she feels abandoned by her mother. ... That's what drives her to want to sing. She connects with this [DJ] character. His name is Dice. He's sort of like what the mother is in terms of semi-dysfunctional.

MTV: But it's not a musical, right?

Carey: It's not a musical. I don't walk up and go, [singing] "Why are you acting this way?" out of the blue for no reason. I always hated that when people just, like, burst into song.

MTV: What kind of details did you offer the script's writer, Kate Lanier?

Carey: I spent a lot of time with Kate ... she was observing the music business thing. But ... it takes place in '82, so the music business was different then. We were rewriting a lot on the set. A lot of things came from improvisation. Obviously, the girl is a singer, but again it's completely not my life. It kinda couldn't be further from my life. Even the guy that she's with is so not like anybody I've ever been with. Not that I've been with that many people in my life. [Laughs]

MTV: Did making videos prepare you for being in front of the camera?

Carey: I don't have issues with being in front of the camera. I've been a freakin' ham since I was three years old. The problem is ... when you are coming from another entertainment world, people really wanna hate on you. And they really wanna say, "Oh, well I don't know, she's going take us out of the movie and we don't want that ... la da da da ta."

MTV: Are you worried about being typecast as a singer?

Carey: No. That's why I'm doing an independent movie that's completely the opposite of me. In "Wisegirls," my character talks like this [thick Brooklyn accent], "You know what, I don't even wanna take your crap right now. You know what I'm saying?" We're talking about a complete character, OK?

MTV: Do you think you get the credit that you deserve for writing, producing and being so hands-on about your music?

Carey: I think that my real fans know what I do ... and that's what matters to me. When I was little, I didn't know that the people who sang usually didn't write the song. That's why I started writing, because I was like, "I could write this song." I just started writing, not even realizing it. I used to make demos for people when I was 14, and I'd be like, "Fine, if you want me to sing this, but couldn't it go like that?" I learned from listening to the radio rather than anything else. ... I'm not bitter about the fact that people don't know how hands-on I am, because they couldn't know unless you are with me. Even my own family could never know every little detail that I do. I do it because I wanna do it.

MTV: Did you want to work with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis this time around to get that authentic '80s sound they pioneered?

Carey: Yeah. And the sick thing is, that they gave me actual tracks from back in the day that they had. ... You don't get any more authentic than the people who wrote all those songs and have those sounds. There's certain things that you can't duplicate.

MTV: Janet Jackson has been identified with working with Jam and Lewis for so long. Now that you two are on the same label, is there any concern ...

Carey: I think that Janet does what she does and she does a great job. I don't have any feelings of being competitive with her. Control is one of my favorite albums of all time.

MTV: Whose idea was it to cover of "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life?"

Carey: It was my idea. Growing up in New York ... I listened to WBLS and KISS-FM. Those songs were ingrained in my mind, just like [Tom Tom Club's] "Genius of Love." The "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" idea came because the character's love interest is a DJ. After all the misery that we go through with the ballads ... there's a lot of ballads on this record. ... After the emotional experience that the movie takes you through, I wanted people to leave the theater and be able to feel like they can go to a party, too.

MTV: How did you hook up with Rick James?

Carey: I asked him to collaborate with me. I wanted to do something new, but like Mary Jane Girls-esque. He's like, "I have a different idea. You can change whatever you want." I would never have come up with a line like, "You and only you can do the freaky thing you do." It was so Rick James that I just said, "I don't need to change this." He wrote it and it's authentic to the period of time. It's called "All My Life." My character is sort of ghost [singing] for this really pretty girl that doesn't really sing. That's how my character gets started.

MTV: Are you going to tour for this record?