The Devil wears Prada, but Anne wears LOVE.

But peace, like success, is more of a journey than a destination. “Cate Blanchett once said something like, ‘I don’t ever want to feel that I’ve arrived, because as soon as you arrive, you have to leave,’” she says. “That’s the way I’ve always felt about it. I’m not interested in getting to the top of the mountain. I hope that, at the top of the mountain, there’s just another mountain.” She knows she regresses sometimes, and recalls a moment watching the monitor after filming a scene for The Hustle. “Chris Addison, the director, saw me recoil and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ And I said, ‘Nothing. I just need a new face,’” she says. The negativity felt all too familiar. “I just had this moment where I was like, ‘Ugh. Not again. You know where this road leads. And you know it doesn’t make you a better actress. So can we please not beat the you-know-what out of ourselves today and just, like, make another choice?’ And the scene came alive.”

In the end, all this self-analyzing has just made her better—a better mom, a better actress, a better human. “Anne is pretty darn self-aware,” says Ocean’s 8director Gary Ross. “The thing that struck me most about working with Anne is her bravery. She commits fully to the character, with bravado and no self-protection—understanding that a great performance is never a timid performance.”