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Naturi Naughton has a lot of very exciting things going on right now. The 32-year- old actress is getting ready for her super-popular STARZ series, Power, to debut it's fourth season, and is anticipating the arrival of her first child with boyfriend, Ben. "I'm super excited! The best way to get ready is to expect the unexpected. Ben is taking birthing classes with me and the nursery is really fun to work on," she says excitedly. The East Orange, New Jersey native has come a long way since her days singing in the all-girl R&B trio 3LW, alongside Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams. "So many people grew up with me. That experience opened up a door to who I was as an artist. I wanted to sing, dance and act, so why not do all three?" Naturi discovered her talent for singing at New Hope Baptist Church, the same church Whitney Houston got her start. "Everyone used to compare me to her... She showed me that I, too, a woman of color, from a small town in New Jersey could also make it." And make it, is exactly what she did. After breaking away from 3LW, Naturi landed on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning musical, Hairspray, playing Little Inez. "Getting on Broadway was the best teacher I could ever have. I could experience and discover something new about myself every night. It made me feel good about singing and dancing again, and that's when I realized that I could really do this acting thing," she says about her Broadway stint from 2005-2008. After Broadway, Naturi went on to sing, dance, and play the piano as Denise in the film, Fame. Her first musical film, Fame was a special milestone for her as an actress, Naturi tells me. This lead to a string of roles on TV shows, including Mad Men, The Playboy Club, and The Client List. But securing an agent and landing the role of Lil Kim in Notorious –the biopic film about The Notorious B.I.G.— had the biggest impact on her. "I was not expecting that at all. It was the most challenging and such a great catapult into the industry of filmmaking. It really showed people that I wasn't afraid to take risks. I went from young girl in Fame to portraying Lil Kim," says Naturi, who appreciates the chance to play roles that allow her to branch out as an actress and explore new things. Naturi added that there is another role that she is extremely interested in portraying in the future. "Recently, I was thinking that I would love to play a Lauren Hill story – shout out to my Jersey people! I love her whole story, which has a lot of ups and downs and I can relate to that." Today, Naturi stars as Tasha in the STARZ hit series, Power — which begins its fourth season June 25th. The burning question on everyone's mind: What's going on with her husband Ghost and how is Tasha handling it all? This season, Naturi explains, could be its most power-ful one yet. See what I did there? "My character Tasha has to pick up the pieces and survive with Ghost being in jail. This is the year of truth and the season is about family and finding out who you can trust. What Ghost has done is coming full circle but Tasha still has his back. She's angry with him but she still loves him. I'm excited for Tasha because she's evolved so much. She's a woman now. She used to do things out of anger and now she's doing things that are strategic and calculated... Her identity used to be how he saw her, and now she's realizing what she wants." Naturi credits the writers on set for her character's transformation, and really appreciates the voices that have been given to all of the female characters on the show. "Instead of pigeonholing characters, we get to be really strong female characters and have a point-of- view. I believe that's what really makes Tasha relatable because the audience feels connected to her thoughts and her story." Covering up her pregnancy while filming was a bit of a challenge, but her showrunner and wardrobe made the job easy. "I had a tiny baby bump because it was very early into my pregnancy. I don't know how I did it honestly. That's the magic of wardrobe. They knew what styles to put me in, like peplums. It was so interesting because I never knew how to cover up a baby bump before. Towards the end though, it did get much harder to hide." After a while, a few of her castmates began to discover her secret, and were incredibly supportive, she tells