Nicki Minaj Brings The Heat, Freezes Competition To The Ice Age

Young Money star Nicki Minaj looks to continue expanding her extensive resume by landing a role in the upcoming animated children's film, Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Reports of Minaj's new movie venture hit the Internet late Thursday (August 4) night.

Joy Behar, Nicki Minaj, Nick Frost and JB Smoove are among the new names to join "Ice Age: Continental Drift" at 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios. Chris Wedge, who helmed the first pic in the "Ice Age" franchise, will reprise his role as Scrat, whose pursuit of an acorn has world-changing consequences that help Sid (Leguizamo) reunite with his long lost family. The rest of the gang, meanwhile, tries to make their way home despite roadblocks from a determined menagerie of colorful characters. Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier will direct "Continental" with Lori Forte and John Donkin producing. 3D pic is slated for release July 13, 2012. (Variety)

She now joins a cast which also consists of her Young Money labelmate, Drake.

Drake and Beyonce have been added to the cast of the next Ice Age movie. The two pop stars will join Jeremy Renner and Jennifer Lopez in Ice Age: Continental Drift. The quartet will star alongside regulars Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo. (Star Pulse)

Although Minaj has never starred in a blockbuster, the rapper has a background in acting.

Nicki Minaj, a graduate of the LaGuardia High School Of Music & Art & Performing Arts, majored in drama while attending the famous New York institution. Employing what she's learned as a teenager and how she's managed to morph herself many times over in the current phase of her career, Nicki Minaj will surely be at ease playing the as-yet-unnamed character in the film. (RapFix)

Rapper-turned-actor Busta Rhymes recently told SOHH he hoped to see Minaj take hold of Hollywood films.

"I don't think there's anything missing from what she's doing," Busta recently told SOHH when asked what advice he could offer Minaj in reference to launching a film career. "She's a new artist. She's doing more than what new artists do as far as being everywhere and having the success and acknowledgment that she's had. I'm just saying the only thing left for her to do, from what I can see, and not only the thing left for her to do but the next thing that I would like to see her do is films." (SOHH)