Princess Tiana serves Anika Noni Rose well — and leads to interesting acting choices

“I’ve been especially respectful of who she is,” the Tony-winning actress says. “I love her. I created her. She’s a first.”

But the Disney princess – the first Black princess in the company’s history – represented a goal she had as a child: to be a voice in an animated film. “I always loved Disney and Disney voices,” Rose says. But Tiana? “She’s a dream come true – a dream that comes to you tenfold.”

The character – soon to be the featured attraction in a revamped version of Splash Mountain at the Disney theme parks – opened the world of animation to her and provided a chance to work with Randy Newman, Terence Blanchard and the film’s directors, Ron Clements and John Musker. “I got to work with legends,” Rose says. “They were so phenomenal.”

And, they were her introduction to a world she only dreamed about.

Born in Connecticut, Rose acted in plays in high school, then got a bachelor’s degree in theater from Florida A&M University. She studied drama at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, moved to New York and scored her first Broadway role (in “Footloose”) within three months. Workshops and off-Broadway roles followed. She then landed a supporting role in “Caroline, or Change,” a musical about a maid in Louisiana. Rose played the maid’s daughter and won a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress. More theater work followed and then “Dreamgirls” came her way. Beyonce, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy pushed her up the ladder and onto the Disney plain.

Since then, Rose has been in a remake of “Roots,” the Starz series, “Power,” and, now, in “Let the Right One In,” a drama about a 12-year-old boy and a  centuries-old vampire child. She plays a police officer and mother of the 12-year-old.

True to form, Rose talked with producers to make sure the Showtime series wasn’t going to be an “a, b, c, a format…that’s not a format that’s exciting to me. I wanted to make sure my journey as a cop wouldn’t have me doing the same things each episode.”

A lesson she learned back around the time of “Caroline, or Change”: “Search for the thing that sparks me, something that takes me in a different direction than the last thing I did so I can be constantly growing, learning and stretching. If you only take the things that are easy, you become dull. To be an artist, you have to get scratched up.”

“Let the Right One In” also stars Demian Bichir as the father of the vampire. He has been seeking a cure for her condition; meanwhile, he stalks the streets of New York looking for fresh blood to keep her alive.

“I love the lore of the vampire,” Rose says. “They live between two worlds and depend on humanity to survive. They have certain abilities to persuade and sway, otherwise they can die.”

Similarly, law enforcement officials straddle two worlds as well. “She lives in the cop world and civilian world and she needs to know why things happen.”

Ian Foreman, who plays her son, and Madison Taylor Baez, who plays the girl, are great scene partners, Rose says. “And I’m very protective of them. These particular children are so smart, so savvy, very mature in many ways. I feel like they’re in a space where I can assist – I don’t ever try to lord experience over them.”

In return, they’re willing to teach her magic (Foreman’s character dabbles in the art) and dance moves.

Thanks to Tiana, Rose feels a responsibility to carry herself in a way that’s kind and respectful.

“You can only expect so much from people,” she explains. “Being a role model is being the best ‘you’ you can. I’m not always going to conduct myself in a way somebody else thinks I should – I have my own triggers and joys and hurt – but I need to live up to my own standards.”

That’s Tiana. “She’s strong. She looks very much like me and I can turn 92 and there will always be that version of me. It’s phenomenal.”

Being a Disney princess, Rose says, is “truly, truly awesome.”

“Let the Right One In” airs on Showtime.