The upcoming musical movie "Sparkle" turned out to be Whitney Houston's swan song, and although this is her co-star Jordin Sparks's first foray into the film world - the "American Idol" alum is still soaking up words of wisdom from the singing legend.

"Whitney taught me that you are never too big to sit down and have a conversation with somebody, you are never too big to smile at somebody or say hello," Sparks told FOX411's Pop Tarts column. "Getting that example from Whitney herself was incredible."

But in the case of "Sparkle," life imitated art just a little too closely - although it seems Houston made no attempt to shy away from her heavily-publicized personal problems.

"One thing we all knew was that Whitney wasn't afraid to talk about the industry, she was very open about the parallels between her life and the story of this movie," Sparks continued. "There is a lot of her in this film...