Sneer all you want about singers who think they can act: Whitney Houston hit gold her very first time out of the thespian gate. True, the Newark-born diva didn't exactly overreach herself in The Bodyguard: She played a larger-than-life pop singer, and her leading man was Kevin Costner. But she did just as well the second time out, playing a lovelorn TV producer in Waiting to Exhale, a bona fide cultural phenomenon masquerading as a movie. Madonna's footing should be so sure. We spoke to Houston as she was doing the promotional rounds for her third film, The Preacher's Wife, delicately sucking on licorice cough drops and sporting a diamond as big as the Ritz.

What's the difference between expressing yourself as a singer and as an actress?

It's hard to make a transition from singing to acting -- the rhythm of music is different from the rhythm of movies. When I was doing The Bodyguard, I was leery. But Kevin said, "You're already an actress. To stand onstage before 20,000 people and command an audience and create a picture within song: You're acting."

Is performing for 20,000 easier or harder than performing for the camera?

Twenty-thousand or just 10, you get an immediate response. As opposed to waiting until a year later to see if people like the movie.

The Preacher's Wife is a very sweet, uncynical film, very unlike most of what's produced in Hollywood today.

I think Hollywood is seeing the need for some spirituality. There's enough shooting, crime, killing -- enough of all that. I am an old-movie girl, and I think it's coming back in full circle to the days you could live in movies, dream in them. The Preacher's Wife takes you back to the old days. When I was growing up in church, it was about community and charity. You knew you had obligations: fish fries, chicken bakes, delivering clothes, going to Sunday school for an hour. It works. It kept you focused on your family, and that's the stuff that good communities were made of. Everything in this movie was familiar to me.

How has your own spirituality shaped your life and career?

My oldest aunt said, "No matter how far you go, just put God first in your life. If you do that, all things are possible -- you can cross barriers that you never thought you would. Never forget Him."

Is the Preacher's Wife album different from your other albums?

I wasn't going for any particular market -- I was singing because I love God. This was not an album I could call pop or R&B, and everything I sing, I sing from my soul, so I couldn't imagine why it would be called a soul album. It was an album of praise and worship, one I had wanted to do for a long time. I just didn't know it would come from a movie -- though if I hadn't done the movie, I still would have done a gospel album.

What do you do to relax?

Nothing. I play with my kid -- normal stuff.

Has motherhood changed you?

Yes. I have grown a lot, to accept the responsibility of a mind you have to develop. You hope everything you gave her will carry over into her life.

Your company is developing a biopic about the life of actress Dorothy Dandridge. What attracted you to the project?

Dorothy kind of fell into my lap. I wasn't looking, but Donald Bogle, who wrote the manuscript [Bogle is the author of Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography], gave it to me because he didn't want anyone else to have it. Some of Dorothy I can identify with, the tribulations of African-Americans in Hollywood. But Dorothy had troubles in life that were far deeper than anyone really understands. We are trying to tell her story right without trying to make her into a problem.