Mariah Carey

After a triumphant musical comeback, Mariah Carey has once again set her sights on the big screen and is set to appear in independent drama Tennessee.

The Don't Forget About Us singer starred in the widely panned 2001 movie Glitter, and appeared with actress Mira Sorvino in WiseGirls in 2002.

In Tennessee, Carey will play a waitress who sets off with two brothers to find their estranged father in order to save their younger brother, who has leukaemia.

Director Aaron Woodley decided to cast Carey after her Grammy-award winning album The Emancipation Of Mimi became the biggest-selling album of 2005 - and also after viewing her work in WiseGirls.

He explains: "I never saw Glitter, but I liked her work in the other film. Because this character is inter-racial and struggles with all sorts of issues because of that, I thought she was perfect."

The film will shoot in New Mexico and Tennessee this spring.