Alicia Keys

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Alicia Keys (born Alicia J. Augello-Cook on January 25, 1980[2] or 1981[3][4]) is an American R&B, soul, and neo soul singer-songwriter, pianist, record producer, actress, music video director, philanthropist, and author who has sold over forty-one million albums and singles worldwide as of 2007, and has won numerous awards, including eleven Grammy Awards, eleven Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, and fourteen NAACP Image Awards.

During the early 2000s, Keys made small cameos in such television series as Charmed and American Dreams. In early October 2006, she played the voice of Mommy Martian in the "Mission to Mars" episode of the children's television series The Backyardigans, in which she sang the song "Almost Everything Is Boinga Here". Keys guest starred as herself in the "One Man Is an Island" episode of the drama series Cane, first aired on November 6, 2007.

Keys made her big-screen debut in early 2007 in the crime film Smokin' Aces, co-starring as an assassin named Georgia Sykes opposite Ben Affleck, Ray Liotta, Common, Andy Garcia, Taraji P. Henson, Jeremy Piven and Ryan Reynolds. Keys received much praise from her co-stars in the film; Reynolds said that Keys had "natural" acting ability as he was surprised she had not starred in films before.[26]

Keys earned further praise for her second film outing, The Nanny Diaries—based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus—, released on August 24, 2007, in which she co-stars alongside Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans as Lynette, Johansson's character Annie's best friend. Brooklyn's Kingsborough Community College was used to film the college graduation scene for the film.[27]

Keys and her long-term manager Jeff Robinson have signed a first-look film production deal to develop live-action and animated projects with Disney, Variety reports. Their first film, a remake of the 1958 comedy Bell, Book and Candle, will star Keys as a witch who casts a love spell to lure a rival's fiancé.[28] Keys and Robinson have also formed a television production company called Big Pita.[29] Their first project will be a CW Network TV series inspired by Keys' experiences as a biracial child growing up in New York, similar to the network's Everybody Hates Chris.[7] Keys has been tapped to executively produce an upcoming TV drama. The title and airing date are presently unconfirmed.[30] Keys and Robinson said they will develop live-action and animated projects at their company, Big Pita, Little Pita, with Keys participating as producer, thesp, banner spearheading soundtrack, and music supervision.

Keys has signed to star in a film adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's acclaimed 2003 bestseller The Secret Life of Bees alongside Jennifer Hudson and Queen Latifah, expected to be released in 2008 via Fox Searchlight. Gina Prince-Bythewood will direct the film, whose filming is to begin in January in North Carolina.[31][32][33]

Keys will also play 1940s biracial piano child prodigy Philippa Schuyler in an upcoming film entitled Composition in Black and White.[34] It is based on the 1995 biographical book of the same name by Kathryn Talalay and follows the story of Philippa Schuyler. "The challenge, in order to actually be able to play classical piano as a woman of mixed race, was by far more than I could ever imagine", Keys said. "That's what intrigued me about that role". The biopic will tell the difficult tale of Schuyler's controversial career, love-hate relationship with her mother, and the black community, her second career as a writer, and her eventual death in a helicopter accident. "Her story is very deep, even up to the point where the relationship between her and her mother gets very strained and she chooses to go to Europe and pass as a Spanish woman in order to be able to play, in order to be able to live a more normal life", Keys said, adding that she and Halle Berry hope to start shooting in early 2008. "As of right now, we're still in the first, second draft of the script", she said. "So a little bit of time—at least a year".

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Keys