Even though she was cast to play Eminem's deceitful girlfriend in "8 Mile," Taryn Manning still hadn't met Marshall Mathers the morning her scenes were scheduled to be shot. So, a few hours before the cameras started rolling she nervously walked up to Slim Shady as he was sitting on a curb.

"I was dying inside," Manning said. "I was like, 'Oh, God, why do I have to do this?' So I started approaching kind of slow, but with a purpose. Before I reached him I said, 'Well, I'm Taryn, and I'm playing Janeane' so he would understand I'm not some weird groupie on the loose, which I felt like at first."

Manning, who along with her brother Kellin, plays in the soulful trip-hop group Boomkat, was especially anxious to meet Eminem because, as a fellow musician, she holds Shady in the highest regard — so much so that she vowed not to mention to him that she was also a vocalist. But one of the girls in the makeup department had a bigger mouth.

"After she told him I sang, he came up to me and said, 'Taryn, I didn't know you were an artist,' " Manning said. "And then he grabbed five-song CD I had, and he really fell in love with the song 'Wastin' My Time' and wound up putting it on the '8 Mile' soundtrack. So we just love him."

Em was jazzed enough about Boomkat to want to sign them to his Shady Records and possibly produce their debut album. But when he jumped up and said, "This looks like a job for me," Manning had to reluctantly decline the offer since the group already had an oral agreement with DreamWorks.

"I don't know if he was mad about that," Manning said. "Maybe he was a little because we talked on the phone and shared ideas. He really liked our edgy songs a bunch, especially 'The Wreckoning,' and he said we should take the less tangible road and make it harder."

The song is currently getting strong radio play, and will be the first single from Boomkat's debut, Boomkatalog One, which drops on April 8. The track is about the karmic backlash that's gonna hit a guy who does his girl wrong.

"It's saying, 'You don't care about me and you're walking out the door, but you're gonna get yours,' " Manning said. "I didn't want it to come off angry or ruthless, it was more of a survival thing — a feeling like I can get through this. You did me so wrong, but I'm going to be all right."

Maybe it has something to do with being part of the Hollywood scene, but Eminem isn't the only megastar musician that Manning considers a friend. She's also tight with Britney Spears, with whom she acted in the film Crossroads.

"She's really funny," Manning said. "She's a great girl, and I like her a lot, but she's always worried about not being a diva. She'll be like, 'I'm not trying to be a diva, but can I get a coffee?' That's her thing for some reason. If you ask for coffee in the middle of the day you're presumed [to be] a diva. So I don't know, maybe she thinks she is a diva because she always wants coffee."

These days, Manning doesn't get to see too much of Spears, but she still considers her one of her industry role models. "She really can't be bothered by petty things, and I think that's great," Manning said. "If people want to say rude things about her or criticize her, she really can't be bothered by it anymore. She's learned to get past that kind of stuff, so I really respect her."

Manning is currently wrapping up a couple of small film projects. After she finishes, she doesn't plan to take any more for a while.

"One thing I hate is stress, so I've really taken a step back from acting, as much as it kills me," she said. "I get scripts in my house a lot that I read and they're [sometimes] for the lead role. I could really put my heart and soul into a great audition and probably win a couple of these parts, but I really don't have the time. Boomkat is my life right now."