Singer Mariah Carey performs during the 2008 Fashion Rocks concert to begin the 2009 Spring/Summer Fashion Week in New York September 5, 2008. [Agencies]

Mariah Carey is set to appear in "gritty" new movie "Push". The "Touch My Body" singer will play a Harlem social worker caring for an obese, HIV-positive teenager who falls pregnant after being raped by her father.

Mariah said: "I'm not going to be a pretty picture but actually it wasn't about that. The role is a supporting part, a little scene, but it's a very important scene.

The character is a social worker. She's inexperienced. "I don't want to reveal what happens but it's kind of important, that character, because things are revealed through her."

Director Lee Daniels cast Mariah in the film after seeing her performance as a battered wife in critically acclaimed film "Tennessee". Mariah added about her new film: "I didn't know I was going to be involved in the film until the last minute.

Lee Daniels, who's directing, called me up and said, 'I want see if you want to come down and do this.' "And I had to do prosthetic moments. It was kind of intense."

Meanwhile, Mariah is also developing a musical film based on her top-selling 1994 album "Merry Christmas". "High School Musical" writer Peter Barsocchini is currently working on the script, which will see Mariah's character battling to stop property developers turning her hometown into a giant shopping mall.

She said: "Since I recorded the Christmas album, I've always wanted to make a movie to go with it, something that people could watch and hear and enjoy every year. I'm into it. I'm all about the holiday season."

(China Daily/Agencies September 24, 2008)