Jessica Simpson Taking Charge

Singer-Actress Insists She's A 'Normal Girl'

(AP)  "I haven't wanted to take a lead role yet because I do want to learn," Simpson says, adding that she's happy to "take in that moment of just playing a straight-laced, normal, Midwestern all-American girl."

Greg Coolidge, director and co-writer of "Employee of the Month," says he had reservations when the studio suggested Simpson for the part. His concern: "Can she act?"

He was "expecting her to be bad" in "Dukes of Hazzard," he says. But when he saw her in a commercial for acne products, he was convinced she could handle the role.

"She was totally charming," he says.

The demands of the part were perfect for Simpson.

"Nothing against Jessica, but I had written that part just as sort of a device anyway," Coolidge says. "It's really not about her."

In the film, Simpson plays a pretty cashier who inspires a competition between two workers at Super Club, a Costco-type store. Both men (comedians Dane Cook and Dax Shepard) hope to win her love by earning the coveted title of Employee of the Month.

Cook says Simpson was well cast, serving as "the foundation" for the comedic jousting between the funnymen.

"I was really pleasantly surprised at how she came in and had plenty of ideas and held scenes together," he says. "She could hang in there."

To play the girl next door, Simpson says she had to "tone a lot down from Daisy Duke and from Jessica Simpson," referring to the sexy bombshell image she's cultivated since splitting from ex-husband Nick Lachey late last year.

"This (role) is not about my image," she says.

Simpson shot "Employee" during her divorce — a challenge in itself, she says.

"I was going through a really rough time in my life but it was good escapism. It was getting out of the world that I was in and getting into a world of being fought over by boys."