Earlier this year, Macy Gray launched a brief North American club tour in support of her third studio album, The Trouble With Being Myself.

Other than that, she's been out of the spotlight in 2003. It's not something she's used to nor, surprisingly, something she enjoys.

"No, not at all," Gray said in a telephone interview this week. "I've been laying low this summer working on a movie, but I love the spotlight. I really do."

Gray is the opening act for David Bowie's North American "A Reality" tour, scheduled to kick off tomorrow night at the Air Canada Centre. The first four scheduled shows of the tour were postponed this week because Bowie was ill.

Gray says the screenplay she has been working on is based on her rather large family growing up in the '70s, with her mother being the focal point.

Although Gray says a lot of people know about the project, there haven't been any takers thus far.

She also says that putting words to celluloid is a lot different than putting words to music.

"The writing is very difficult (for film)," she says. "It's tedious and it's painstaking and it takes hours. Songwriting is different because it's very immediate. When you're writing songs, you can 'pop out' (go someplace else) but then go onto the next track. But when you're writing a movie, it has to be clear and it has to be real."

As for opening for Bowie, Gray says the veteran Brit rocker is a big fan of hers and asked her to join him on this tour. Gray hopes they'll do something on stage together but nothing yet has been discussed. And while she has been an opening act for stars such as Santana, Gray prefers being the headliner.

"It's easier to headline because then you can do your own thing," she says. "I've only done it a couple of times where it's been a double bill. But people that I really like and that I'm a really big fan of, I like to go out on the road with them."

One thing that seems to separate Gray from a lot of live acts is her ability to rework her songs. Opting for anything but a perfected rendition of the finished studio product, Gray keeps things fresh and ridiculously funky.

"We always take the songs and we do something different to them live," she says. "What you hear on the record isn't what you'll hear live because we use different instruments. Each song takes a life of its own because there are a lot of transitions from the other songs."

If there was one disappointment this year for Gray, it might have been the recent "46664" concert in South Africa for AIDS research. The original concert, set for last February, included Gray, Bono, Shaggy and several other big names but was cancelled due to a disagreement among organizers.

When the new date of Nov. 29 was announced, Gray was not included in the lineup. Gray says she doesn't know exactly what happened but says she was disappointed about being excluded.

After wrapping this tour, Gray plans to return to the studio in March to begin work on her fourth album.

A movie role or two isn't out of the question, she says, but the record is her top priority.

"I'm really excited about making this new album," she says.

"I've started writing for it already."