Acting on Instinct : REBA MCENTIRE DRAWS ON FEELINGS SHE HAD ABOUT A SONG THAT’S NOW THE BASIS OF HER CBS FILM

Reba McEntire discerns one primary difference between her dual careers as a singer and an actress, and that’s artistic control.

“I have absolutely no control as an actress of how I end up on screen,” she says. “When I make records, I sing and then I listen to it. If I don’t like it, I can fix it right there. But when I’m acting, I have somebody, a complete stranger, telling me how to act. Then when they go and edit it, they might edit out the thing that drew my reaction. Then my reaction looks so overboard and blown out of proportion, and I cringe. That’s the only thing I hate about movies, having absolutely no control.”

Control is an important issue for McEntire. As she’s grown into one of country music’s highest-profile stars, McEntire has increasingly absorbed control of all aspects of her career. As co-founder of Starstruck Entertainment with second husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire manages her own career, concert promotion, publicity, music publishing, record production, travel arrangements and fleet of small aircraft.

(McEntire has chartered her own flights since one of two planes she’d hired to carry her band and crew crashed into Otay Mountain shortly after taking off from San Diego in March, 1991. Seven band members, her road manager and the pilot were killed. McEntire and the other band members were on another plane.)

She also owns Starstruck Farms, which raises thoroughbred horses, and recently formed Starstruck Construction so she could oversee the details of erecting a high-rise office complex in the middle of Nashville’s music community.

Nonetheless, the award-winning singer, who appears this week in the lead role of the CBS movie “Is There Life Out There?,” sounds like an eager up-and-comer rather than a savvy business magnate when discussing her increasing presence in movies and on television.

The thin, animated redhead retains the Oklahoma twang she acquired during her upbringing amid rodeo contests and religious revivals.

Sitting in a cluttered office of her current Starstruck headquarters--the new office building won’t be finished until later this year--she excitedly recounts the success of her recent best-selling autobiography “Reba: My Story,” and her current million-selling album with the literary tie-in title, “Read My Mind.” (Both the book and album feature the same photograph on the cover.) But she displays her greatest exuberance when talking about her screen work.

McEntire made her film debut in 1990 as a gung-ho, weapon-wielding survivalist in the sci-fi spoof “Tremors.” Despite recent feature roles in Rob Reiner’s “North” and Penelope Spheeris’ “The Little Rascals,” as well as lead parts opposite Burt Reynolds in “The Man From Left Field” and opposite Kenny Rogers in “The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw,” she admits to feeling insecure about her acting skills.

But, she says, “I feel better about my acting. I mind very well.” When director David Jones suggested she perform a scene a certain way, “that’s how I do it,” she explains. “If I do it a couple times and I’m not comfortable with it, I go to him and talk about it. I might make a suggestion then, but if he says no, I don’t do it.”

Jones, speaking from London where he’s directing a Dennis Potter play for the BBC, admits that when he was first approached about doing the movie he thought working with a country singer could be a challenge. “But we hit it off very well, right from our first meeting,” Jones says. “She was terrific to work with. She’s extremely direct as a woman, and honest about her fears.”

Jones compared McEntire’s “instinctive way of working” to the two young actors who play her children. “She had the same kind of directness that they had,” he says. “She didn’t pre-plan very much. She wasn’t ‘method’ oriented; she doesn’t have that kind of training. She has more of an intuitive approach. I think she surprised herself a few times, to be honest.”

One such time occurred in a scene where she gets slapped. “She was very upset, very tearful, in that scene,” Jones says. Afterward, the director asked her if the slap was too hard, if it bothered her. “She said that it wasn’t, that it was too violent,” he recalls. “She said she’d forgotten how her elder sister used to beat her up. ... it all came back to her.”

“Is There Life Out There?” is based on a hit song McEntire recorded in 1991. Written by Susan Longacre and Rick Giles, the song tells of a housewife and mother who married at age 20. Once her children are grown, she begins to ponder what to do with her future and how to experience life outside of the home. “When I first heard that song, I thought, ‘My cousin Trisha Ann could really relate with this.’ She got married right out of high school and has two wonderful boys. She kind of lived life through them. After the kids were gone--the youngest graduated last year--she had to start a whole new life.”

A music video, written by Alice Randall and directed by Jack Cole, expanded the song’s theme to feature a mother of two school-age children who, while working as a waitress in a diner, enrolls in college. The movie takes a deeper look at the struggles of a wife and working mother who tries to squeeze college studies into a tight schedule, and the tensions that creates at home. Keith Carradine stars as McEntire’s husband, who starts out supportive but becomes troubled as the family routine grows strained and a handsome young tutor enters the picture.

“After the video, we started getting letters from people about how that song had changed their life or motivated them,” McEntire says. “A lot of the letters were from women, but we also got them from men who said the song encouraged their wives to go back to school. And there was one from a woman whose daughter had quit high school and had gone back because of the song. That takes such courage.”

McEntire routinely meets with members of her fan club backstage following her concerts. After a recent Pittsburgh show, a woman in her late 30s stood up to tell McEntire that she had enrolled in college. “She told me she was scared to death,” McEntire recalls. “I told her to hang in there, we’re rooting for you.”

Emmy-winning producer Marian Rees, who shares executive producer credit on “Is There Life Out there?” with McEntire and Blackstock, first raised the idea of creating a vehicle for McEntire during a meeting set up by the William Morris Agency. “I wasn’t into it at first,” McEntire says. “It’s easier for me, with all the projects I got going, to say yes or no to a finished project than to have to create it. It’s the same with songs. I’m not interested in sitting in a room and writing a song. I respect the songwriters with all my heart, ‘cause they’re the ones who have to do the work. I just go in and sing it and it’s over. That’s the way I wanted to do movies too.”

Rees then asked the singer if she had a hit song that she thought could be developed into a movie. “I said, ‘No,’ ” McEntire says with an abrupt laugh. “She told me, ‘That’s a shame. You have so many good songs. There’s one that I really think would merit a movie.’ ” McEntire took the bait and asked which song. When Rees said, “Is There Life Out There?,” McEntire looked at her husband, who smiled, raised his eyebrows and nodded his head.

McEntire’s primary condition, other than approving the script, was that the production company hire as many female crew members as possible. “And we did,” she says with a smile, “and they were all qualified too. They weren’t just on the set because they were women. They were there because they’re good at what they do. I wanted that because it’s such a good woman’s film. I think it helped make it a better movie too. It helped us make our statement. If we’re going to do a film about a woman going back and fulfilling her dreams, then we should encourage and help others to do that too.”

Providing opportunity to women is a role McEntire takes seriously in her myriad businesses also. At Starstruck Entertainment, the staff includes 16 women, from vice presidents to support personnel. A woman manages McEntire’s farm, and two women are employed by Starstruck Jets. On the road, McEntire’s crew includes 12 more women, not only as singers and dancers, but also as technicians and stagehands. Several female songwriters are on the roster of her music publishing company.

During the interview, the atmosphere in the office is congenial, as staffers pop their heads into the boss’ office to welcome her back from the road. Many linger a few moments to answer McEntire’s questions about their personal lives, and laughter regularly echoes through the office and down the busy halls. “We work hard, and we have a lot of fun,” McEntire says. “It’s the greatest living I’ve ever made, I’ll tell you that for sure. It sure beats working cattle all to thunder.”

“Is There Life Out There?” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS.