Fantasia Barrino burst into stardom in 2004 when she won the third season of American Idol. Her debut album, Free Yourself, released in the wake of that victory, sold more than 1.5 million copies. Now the 21-year-old single mother from High Point, N.C., is on the verge of making it big on the silver screen. Fantasia wowed executives at an audition for the star role of Effie in the movie adaptation of the Tony award-winning musical Dreamgirls.
“She blew everyone away,” a source close to the production revealed. “In the words of someone who saw the audition, it was like discovering Judy Garland. It was that good.”
About three weeks ago, Barrino auditioned for screenwriter and director Bill Condon (who wrote the screenplay for Chicago) in Los Angeles. Now Fantasia is on the verge of landing what a source calls “her big break.” She only needs the approval of producer David Geffen, who was one of the producers of the original Broadway show in 1981, to land the role.