I first stumbled across Ain't It Cool News a few years ago when I was researching a couple of U.K. university admissions tests — the BMAT and the LNAT. Unfortunately, I had my acronyms wrong. So instead of finding information about the BioMedical Admissions Test, I learned about the Butt-Numb-a-Thon, an annual 24-hour film festival/birthday party for Ain't It Cool's Harry Knowles. Since then, I've been a casual reader of Ain't It Cool News — a movie-geek site maintained mostly by and for male movie-geeks.

The site is a great source of movie news, rumors and gossip, and I usually find something interesting when I check it out every week or so. Today, I stumbled across the unexpected — an interview with Loretta Devine.

Loretta Devine is not a typical interview subject for a fanboy site. In fact, the interviewer, Capone, opens with this acknowledgment:

“Now before you start freaking out on me, I'm well aware that Loretta Devine might seem like a strange choice for an interview subject on this site, but quite frankly I don't care. I love this woman to death, and I'm not afraid to throw you guys a curve ball every once and a while. There is something about Devine's presence in a film or TV show that just makes me feel good about life. She's a solid acting talent, she can sing like an angel, and just about one of the sweetest people you could ever meet.”

And I agree with Capone. (Although I don't actually know if she's sweet in person. But I'll bet she is.)

Loretta Devine is one of those actresses you may or may not know by name, but you've definitely seen her somewhere. And probably a whole lot of somewheres. She's rarely the lead, but she has a prolific film, TV and stage résumé. Probably her best known role is Glo in the movie Waiting to Exhale.

She's the one on the far left.

Broadway fans, however, know her best as the original “Lorell” in Dreamgirls.

But she's really been all over the place. She's done an enormous amount of TV. You may have seen her on Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal or Girlfriends. Or perhaps you remember her as “Marla” on Boston Public.

Personally, I remember her best as “Stevie” from Season 1 of A Different World. (My college roommate and I used to watch that and marvel at how much bigger the dorm rooms were at Hillman College than at UCLA.)

And she's been in any number of movies. Including Urban Legend,

I Am Sam and Crash. And she had a cameo in the film version of Dreamgirls — although she felt conflicted about being the only member of the original cast to have one.

“At first, I had such mixed feelings because they didn't want to pay me anything. ... And they weren't going to have all three women, and I really wanted all of us to be in it. And Bill called and explained that he was doing the same thing that he did in Chicago, that scene with Chita Rivera, where it was like a simple scene where everybody could go, 'Oh, my God.' And he wanted to get somebody from the original Dreamgirls, and I debated it, but I really didn't want to miss that part of history, the final chapter.”

(I had that “Oh, my God!” reaction to the cameos in both movies.)

Devine also has a bunch of current projects. The movie First Sunday just opened this past weekend. And she has a principal role (as the “sassy assistant”) in the upcoming ABC series Eli Stone.

So take a moment to think about all the little moments of happiness that Loretta Devine has brought you over the years. And kudos to Capone at Ain't It Cool News for sharing a little sunshine.