HOLLYWOOD -- Like Drew Barrymore, Brittany Murphy is dedicating her performance in Riding in Cars with Boys to her mother.

In this bittersweet romantic comedy, Murphy plays Faye, the best friend of Beverly Donofrio (Barrymore), a woman who triumphs over adversity.

"Like Faye, my mother is a single parent of an only child. My parents divorced when I was a baby. I don't know my biological father and don't want to. It was only ever my mother (Sharon Murphy) and me."

Murphy, 23, was born in Atlanta, but moved to New Jersey when she was still a child.

"I was a really precocious child. My mother says I was talking before I was a year old and from the time I could walk I was putting on my own little shows ...."

She insists her mother did not channel her into acting, but rather it was her choice to start auditioning for community musical theatre plays when she was nine.

"I've actually been making money as an actress since I was 13, when I did a pizza commercial.

"The commercial work just kept piling up. In one day, I got jobs for Skittles, Pizza Hut and Honey Bunches of Oats.

"My mom could see how much I loved performing so she let me go with my agent and a chaperone to L.A. to audition for pilot season."

Mother and daughter moved to Hollywood the following year when Murphy got a role on the TV series Drexell's Class with Jason Biggs.

She quickly built up an impressive TV and feature film resume which includes Clueless, David and Lisa, Devil's Arithmetic, Double Jeopardy, Drop Dead Gorgeous and Girl, Interrupted.

Murphy was chosen to play the lead in a Janis Joplin biography, but the film fell through in legal wrangles over the rights to the singer's musical library.

Her Joplin screen tests were not in vain.

Penny Marshall saw them and invited Murphy to audition for the lead role in Riding in Cars with Boys.

When Barrymore expressed an interest, Marshall shifted Murphy into the role of Faye, the best friend.

"I'm so happy for Drew. She is an amazing person. She's more amazing than I could ever have imagined. We worked together for seven months and got to know each other in much the same way our characters did."

Murphy lost out on another role she dearly wanted.

"Miramax had three meetings with me about playing one of the leads in the film version of Chicago. I wanted that role desperately. It's been a dream of mine for years, but I was the wrong age."

The role went to Charlize Theron, but Murphy's extensive musical theatre training did not go unnoticed.

"The producers of Chicago are the producers behind the current Broadway revival of Cabaret. They've offered me a six-month run in New York as soon as I can work it into my schedule."

Murphy has had to put that dream on hold for a few months to play rapper Eminem's girlfriend in the film based on his life.

In addition to Driving in Cars, Murphy can currently be seen as a schizophrenic teenager in Michael Douglas' Don't Say a Word.

Next month, she stars opposite Edward Burns, Heather Graham, Stanley Tucci and Dennis Farina in the romantic comedy Sidewalks of New York.