One might say Norah Jones has a knack for making debuts. Her cappuccino-smooth first album, 2002’s “Come Away With Me,” moved more than 20 million copies and netted half-a-dozen Grammy Awards. If a dash of right-place-right-time factored into such mass success, fortune must still be smiling on the 28-year-old singer-songwriter: In her first foray into acting, she was handpicked by the art-house rock star Wong Kar Wai to star in “My Blueberry Nights,” which opens in the city next Friday.

Ms. Jones didn’t know why the director singled her out for his first feature since the kaleidoscopic fantasy-romance “2046” four years ago. But after watching “In the Mood for Love” and “Chungking Express” (which starred the Taiwanese pop phenom Faye Wong), she knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “Who doesn’t want Wong Kar Wai to dress them up, put makeup on them, and shoot them?” Ms. Jones beamed recently at the offices of Blue Note Records, which released her third album, “Not Too Late,” a little more than a year ago. “I thought, gosh, if this guy wants me in a movie, I’ll probably look my best. Might as well do it while I’m young.”

The good-humored pianist had never acted before, but “My Blueberry Nights” fittingly has the feel of a cycle of songs. In Mr. Wong’s version of a road movie, Ms. Jones plays the lovelorn Lizzie, who befriends a SoHo cafe owner (Jude Law) before embarking on a cross-country journey of self-discovery (and waitressing). With David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman co-starring in segments, Ms. Jones’s character sometimes fades to the background as she nurses her wounds, a bit like a lover from one of her songs.

But acting before the camera was something entirely new — and welcome — for someone well-rooted in her profession at a young age and, even after the ubiquity offered by fame, used to an intimate local circuit.

“It was really good for me to be thrown out of my comfort zone,” Ms. Jones said. “I love my New York musicians I work with — I’ve been working with a lot of the same people for six or seven years — but it was really fun to be outside of my element and with a bunch of strangers.”

As it turned out, though, music was very much a part of the making of “My Blueberry Nights.” For one thing, Ms. Jones wrote and performed the lead song (“The Story”) on the film’s soundtrack, which features a mix of Cat Power, classics, and covers, as well as burnished Americana by Ry Cooder. But Mr. Wong’s famously multitextured cinema apparently found some of its own groove during the shoot.

“When we were in New York, we listened to two Cat Power songs for three weeks to rehearse camera angles and mood with,” Ms. Jones said. “Anytime we shot without sound, it was: ‘Ready, start music, action!'” She suggested the selections (from Cat Power’s “The Greatest”) used on set, as well as a Cassandra Wilson cover of a Neil Young song and Otis Redding’s heart-wrenching “Dreams to Remember,” played during the Memphis segment of the shoot. Each song ended up on the soundtrack (and Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, herself appears in the movie in a brief but astonishingly evocative turn).

Other quirks of Mr. Wong’s filmmaking also fascinated Ms. Jones, who found him “very sweet” and accommodating. His indispensable production designer, William Chang, who essentially co-creates the director’s sensuous films, rarely even needed to talk to his colleague. And Mr. Wong, known for his trademark sunglasses, demonstrated a lynx-like night vision.

“We’d be shooting at nighttime, and he would have his shades on, in the dark, looking at the monitor,” Ms. Jones said. “Very mysterious, that man.”

Shooting wrapped in late 2006, and Ms. Jones soon began a tour for her third album. (The film’s distributor, the Weinstein Company, held the project after a mixed reception at last spring’s Cannes Film Festival.) The demanding schedule (“Sometimes you agree to do too much”) wrapped up last September, and since then, Ms. Jones has been doing something different.

“Nothing,” said the singer, who grew up in Texas but lives in Manhattan. “I’m relaxing, taking some time off. I do stuff in town, and might do a little recording to see how some new songs sound. But I’m not in a rush to jump back out.”

Future stints on-screen are not in the offing, though the singer warmed up to the process by the end of making “My Blueberry Nights.” In fact, when it came to her scenes with Ms. Portman (as a gambling Vegas gal), acting in a movie was as fun as … being in a movie.

“We were in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Nevada,” Ms. Jones said. “Me and Natalie in the car, in a Cadillac. I felt like I was in ‘Thelma and Louise’!”

She laughed, launching into a drawl: “‘Welllll, Thelma …’ But we didn’t go off the cliff.”