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I wanted to bring back that big, ballad type of music that we used to love so much. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, when they first came out, that's what I grew up singing.

Music was always part of my life - my mother says I came out singing. I wanted to be Gene Kelly - or Judy Garland.

I grew up listening to so many different things, and having a dad that also sang, music was innately born into me. Going through high school and college, I'd go see anyone who came to town, it didn't matter the genre.

So I would dance and she would sing, and it was kind of a family thing. Performing was part of our world.

From a very young age, music was very much in my house. I would sit with my mom, with the old LPs, listening to The Beatles and Carly Simon and Lionel Richie. The old LPs used to have the lyrics. From there, I would put on dance and music displays for my family, just to entertain them and make people laugh and smile.

My parents' record collection was the music I was hearing as long as I can remember, and I would play Otis Redding over and over again.

I would love to go into musicals. I got a chance to sing in 'Big Momma's House,' and that's something I would love to do more. But only in Broadway or in the movies. I don't think I would ever seek a career as a singer.

I'd love to do a modern-day musical that's full of original music. To get your contemporaries to sing and dance without looking foolish and for it to be transformational and magical and all those things a musical is supposed to be.

I would leave school and go to my theater class, and that's when I'd actually sit down and listen. I wouldn't pay attention in school, or I'd sing in class and get in trouble - I'd always get in trouble. Theater is the only thing I always came back to.