Fantasia Tries to Impress Denzel Washington With TV Roles  4/14/05

American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino is breaking out into TV in America in the hope of raising the attention of her hero Denzel Washington. The singer will play soul great Aretha Franklin on an upcoming episode of American drama series American Dreams and she's also signed up for a guest role on cartoon comedy The Simpsons. 

Fantasia insists she wants to do as much acting as possible in the hope she'll wow Washington. She says, "I've been telling Denzel to call me. I believe y'all have been giving him the wrong number." In The Simpsons, Fantasia will play a rival to Lisa Simpson in an American Idol-style singing competition. She adds, "When you do The Simpsons, that's major. That's like a big-time cartoon that everybody watches. When they called me, I was like, 'Of course I'll do it!'" 

She admits the role wasn't as easy as she thought it would be, because she had to cry on demand: "I'm singing up against Lisa and she wins. I was kind of hurt about it and I had to do this big crying scene and I was like, 'How am I going to cry?' "I started having flashbacks of how my baby cried all the time when I'm at home, so it wasn't too hard."