(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Queen Latifah refuses to talk to people until she has been awake for at least 20 minutes.

The 40-year-old star has carved out a successful singing and acting career, and is renowned for her larger-than-life personality. The way she is portrayed means many expect her to be loud all the time, but the reverse is true. Queen Latifah values silence so much she insists on staying quiet when she first gets out of bed, as it helps her prepare for the day ahead.

I'm not one of those people who wake up chatting. I usually don't want to speak for the first ten or 20 minutes. And I don't really want you to talk to me either! she laughed. Making that little peaceful time at the beginning of my day really helps me gear up. I got the idea from doing a talk show, when you've gotta talk all day. I realised that I enjoyed the silence.

The star credits her family with helping her become successful. They showed her if you worked hard and put in effort anything was possible, one of the most valuable lessons of her life.

Queen Latifah knows things could have been very different for her if she had taken another path, and is thankful she had the foresight not to go for an easy fix when she was young.

My grandfather owned a hardware store in Newark. Just seeing him become successful and how it became a family business was always interesting to me. And if my brother and I wanted money in our pockets, we had to get jobs - my first was at 15, at Burger King. We had to come up with ways to create an income," she explained to Parade magazine. "Unfortunately, some of the brightest minds use that hustler spirit and apply it to becoming drug dealers. I didn't want to be that person. It wasn't a positive way to make money, and we all knew that it led to death or jail." (C) Cover Media