Entertainment

Norah Jones is the last musician on earth you'd expect to see acting on the silver screen.

Danny Clinch

Shy, awkward and wary of the spotlight, she's the Accidental Pop Star. When her debut CD started selling millions in 2002, she got so freaked out by the attention she asked Blue Note to stop selling it – a request they promptly declined.

So what's she doing on the red carpet at Cannes, starring with Jude Law in the movie My Blueberry Nights?

"It's totally weird, I agree," the Dallas native says by phone from a stop on a concert tour that brings her to Nokia Theatre on Monday night.

"I have this self-consciously shy side where I'm incredibly terrified of being in the limelight. But I also have this inner ham that's starting to come out."

Before Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai cast her in My Blueberry Nights , her only acting experience was in one high school play a decade ago. But Mr. Wong didn't care: He was so entranced by her sultry singing voice he decided she had to star in his first English-language film.

At first, Ms. Jones declined. But the director persisted and she finally changed her mind after renting his 2000 art-house film In the Mood for Love.

"He comes at filmmaking in a way that's so loose and spontaneous, which is kind of the music background I come from, you know?" she says.

"There's no script, and he allows improvisation. The film grew as I grew – he saw what I was good at, and what I wasn't, and he adjusted it as we went on."

Tentatively set for a fall release, My Blueberry Nights stars Ms. Jones as heartbroken drifter who wanders the U.S. and meets offbeat characters played by Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and Mr. Law. Critics at Cannes gave the film and Ms. Jones mixed reviews, with Variety calling her performance "agreeable but bland."

"I don't know how good I am, but I'm glad I did it, even if I get booed," she says, a few days before flying to Cannes.

"I'm not becoming a drama queen or anything. But I think it gave me a lot of confidence I didn't have before."

You'd think selling 35 million albums and winning eight Grammys would be enough of a confidence boost. But at 28, she's still learning.

Her third and newest CD, Not Too Late, is the first album on which she's written the majority of the songs. And none are more striking than "My Dear Country," a cabaret ballad about fear and loathing at the polling booth.

She admits George W. Bush was on her mind as she wrote the lyrics "Who knows, maybe he's not deranged?" Still, she says she's leery of mixing politics and music.

"I'm proud of that song for being able to express my feelings, but I definitely try to be respectful of people's differing opinions," she says. "I don't want to be spouting off and saying 'You should think like me.' "

Nor is she ready to lobby voters as Bruce Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks and others did during the 2004 pro-Kerry concert tour Vote for Change. "If I do it, it would have to be for someone I believe in 100 percent, and that's hard to do because the nature of being a politician is, to me, suspicious.

"This whole mentality is kinda backwards," she says of celebrity endorsements. "I have a hard enough time seeing myself as a public figure as it is."

Danny Clinch

After three solo albums and one country side project (The Little Willies), her public image is still that of a sleepy balladeer – "Snorah Jones," as one critic put it. Despite her massive album sales, she's never been on the cover of Rolling Stone or Spin and isn't considered hip in the rock world.

But that could change. Last year, she strapped on an electric guitar and donned fishnet stockings to perform with her punky side band, El Madmo. Now she's recording an album with the group, which also includes her Handsome Band mates Daru Oda and Andrew Borger.

"I can't stop talking about it because I'm so excited about it," she says. "The songs are really fun and silly at times, although I don't know how 'hard-core' they are."

She'll never be mistaken for a hard-core punk, but NoJo definitely knows her hard rock. The woman who purrs "Don't Know Why" is a serious headbanger.

"I always sing 'Welcome to the Jungle' when I do karaoke," she says. "And one of my favorite things to watch on TV is Metal Mania . I love the real stuff, but I like all the schlocky hair-metal stuff, too."

As a teen, she listened to Mötley Crüe and Warrant CDs at home before going to class and studying piano theory at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Eventually, her jazz side prevailed. After winning DownBeat's best student jazz singer award in '96 and '97, she moved to New York City and got discovered by Blue Note.

Millions of album and countless sold-out concerts later, she still has vivid memories of her very first gig – an open-mike night at Grinders, a Dallas coffeehouse on Lower Greenville Avenue that's now the Side Bar & Grill.

It was March 30, 1995 – her 16th birthday – as she joined some of her Booker T. classmates in performing "I'll Be Seeing You" and other jazz standards. She recalls being deathly nervous, even though the audience was tiny.

But mostly, she remembers how mad the bass player got when she announced "Hi! We're high school students!"

"He told me, 'Stop saying that.' I don't know if he was embarrassed, or if he was trying to hit on older girls," she says, laughing.

"My banter was even worse then than it is now. That's just the kind I nerd I was."

Plan your life
Norah Jones performs Monday at 7:30 p.m. with opening act M. Ward at Nokia Theatre, 1001 Performance Place, Grand Prairie. $46-$56. Ticketmaster.