Kyla Pratt accentuates the positive

Kyla PRATT knew that Fat Albert needed a makeover.

No, not a weight-loss program or a fashion update. Rather, the 18-year-old actress -- who plays doubt-filled Doris opposite Fat Albert (Kenan Thompson) in the recently released “Fat Albert” film -- realized that Albert and the rest of his gang had to have a modern-day twist to connect with young moviegoers.

After all, the Saturday-morning cartoon “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” was on television more than a decade before Pratt was born.

“We had to make it a little new school,” Pratt says as she settles into her seat at a restaurant near the Beverly Center earlier this week. “We had to have Fat Albert rapping and doing a remix to the original Fat Albert song.”

So, instead of playing instruments as part of a junkyard band, as the characters did in the cartoon, this Fat Albert incarnation busts some rhymes while Doris and the rest of the crew, including real-life versions of cartoon carry-over characters Mushmouth and Dumb Donald, dance along in a pivotal block party scene.

The transformation from the early 1970s to 2004 seems to have gone well for “Fat Albert.” Despite opening on Saturday (Christmas Day) instead of the usual Friday release, thereby trimming off a day at the box office, the 20th Century Fox movie was the No. 2 film in the country over the weekend. It was co-written by Fat Albert creator Bill Cosby and features him in a small role.

But fans of the cartoon series should not expect an extreme makeover. “We couldn’t change essentially who the character was,” says “Fat Albert” director Joel Zwick. “I wanted him to accept the world as it is today and simply add a Fat Albert quotient to it, that of warmth, caring and problem-solving.”

In the film, which includes cartoon segments but focuses on live action, Albert and his motley crew emerge from a television to become real people. They join Doris during her daily routine, trying to help her overcome self-doubt and get her to embrace her own inner strength, conditions Pratt personally needs little help with.

As she walks into the restaurant on an overcast morning, she sports a bright pink sweater and a disarming smile, hardly the traits of a teen struggling with self-esteem issues. In fact, after a few minutes, it’s clear she is closer in real life to Breanna Washington, the sassy, confident character she plays on the UPN sitcom “One on One.”

“I’m the girl who’s like, ‘Why wear heels when I can wear tennis shoes and be comfortable?’ ” she says. (She is wearing Adidas.) “I’ve always been the girl who’s like, ‘Let’s go play basketball.’ ”

Coincidentally, basketball helped propel Pratt’s career. After being discovered at a modeling show when she was 7, the Long Beach native participated seven years ago in Nike commercials that promoted the WNBA. “One on One” star Flex Alexander sought Pratt after seeing her in the spots, and she also earned a role in the film “Love & Basketball” (2000).

As her career began taking off, Pratt remained focused on school -- her mother made certain of that. “For me, acting was a reward,” she says. “I had to get good grades in order to act, in order to be on TV. I had to do well in school so I could work. To me, it was like an after-school activity, something to look forward to.”

Pratt appeared in both of Eddie Murphy’s “Dr. Dolittle” films, but “Fat Albert” is her first starring role in a film that focuses on a young black girl, a rarity. “She’s got what it takes,” Zwick says. “It’s just a question of finding enough projects so that she can get a chance to show it.”

Pratt herself started looking for roles she wanted to play, rather than just those that were easy to fill. Playing a smart, talented girl like Doris made “Fat Albert” desirable.

“When I turned 15, 16, I started looking at the different roles that we had out there and wished there were more positive roles,” she says. “That’s the main reason I just fell in love with this movie, because it’s a positive movie, and people can go out and see it and just fall in love with it and not have to cry because someone got killed. It had a lot of good messages in it, and that’s what Mr. Cosby does. He brings positive stuff to us.”

Pratt, who had minimal interaction with Cosby during filming, hopes to continue portraying positive characters, much as Cosby has done. After all, as the oldest of five children, Pratt has siblings who look up to her.

“I like to do stuff for my brothers and sisters to appreciate because they look up to me, and for other kids around the world who want to get into acting or who just want to have somebody to look up to,” she says. “They have somebody to look up to instead of my being the girl that’s shooting people and doing drugs in school.”