Cate Blanchett has taken on roles that are both varied and have earned her the respect of her peers and fans, and as one of the most beautiful, gifted, well-spoken women in Hollywood she can count on a lot of those fans to view her as a role model. But the 44-year old says that no one is ever who they seem to be, and that’s what makes us interesting.

“No one is ever who they purport to be. And I suppose I’m most interested in the gap between who we project socially and who we really are,” she told The Observer in a recent interview.

The Oscar-winning actress has taken on roles that put her in Peter Jackson’s whimsical, gorgeous Hobbit world; in the haunting swamps of Louisiana; in the animated world inside Seth MacFarlane’s mind. She has won a whopping 74 awards for her work over the years, yet she says she’s not immune to that nagging little voice we all have.

“I can be a real pessimist. You know that when you win an Oscar and you walk offstage and your first thought is: “Oh God, I’ve peaked,” she said.

Shockingly, Blanchett says she had doubts about being an actor for a long time, well into her career.

“I don’t know if I ever really wanted to be an actor. I’m an active person – the thought of waiting for the phone to ring wasn’t something that sat happily with me. But I kept doing it, trying not to do it, and then doing it. There’s such a blessed unrest that you feel all the time, but maybe that’s what keeps you going.”

With 11 projects coming out between now and 2015, it looks like she’s good with where she is now, and her fans are all the better for it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons