Michelle Williams

Long profile of Michelle Williams in yesterday's NYT. Williams has been a busy actress (4 movies) in the past year, including a buzzed-about role in Wendy and Lucy. (NYT)

Despite her claims of burnout, she still talks about acting with a kind of reverential awe. “I’m a Virgo, and I want everything to be fair and equal and clear, and acting just isn’t,” she said. “It’s kind of an incantation or a rain dance.” She loves the research process but is less thrilled about watching the end results (and often doesn’t). “If only the damned things never came out,” she said. “I get far too self-critical when I watch myself.”

In an e-mail message a couple of weeks later, Ms. Williams said she had been mulling over the questions that came up in the interview. “I’ve started thinking more clearly, my head hasn’t been so switched on recently,” she wrote. “I’ve always identified with loners and outcasts, I don’t know why. I guess this is why I found a home in independent film.” She added: “I wanted to work outside the system, which is why all this fame is a real brain teaser. What am I supposed to do with it? Can you work the system without it working you?