Michelle Williams on Life Without Heath Ledger
Michelle Williams is Vogue's October cover girl, where the stunning actress is styled as Marilyn Monroe, whom she plays in the highly anticipated My Week with Marilyn.
In the candid interview, Williams talks about everything from her emotional transformation, now that she is 30-years-old, to still dealing with Heath Ledger's untimely death in 2008.
"Three years ago, it felt like we didn't have anything, and now my life -- our life -- has kind of repaired itself," she says of life with daughter Matilda, whom she had with Ledger.
But she admits that Ledger's passing, with whom she was separated at the time, has forever changed her.
"It's changed how I see the world and how I interact on a daily basis," she shares. "It's changed the parent I am. It's changed the friend I am. It's changed the kind of work that I really want to do. It's become the lens through which I see life -- that it's all impermanent."
The notoriously shy, Oscar-nominated actress also opens up to the magazine about her struggles playing one of Hollywood's most beloved icons, specifically living up to her almost impossible standard of beauty.
MORE: Michelle Williams Walks the Gauntlet as Monroe
"The expectation to be beautiful always makes me feel ugly because I feel like I can't live up to it," she admits.
The waifish Williams had to gain weight to create some of Monroe's infamous curves, but says the weight "went right to [her] face", so she admits to using foam padding to fill out her body.
Still, the experience was an intense one.
"It felt like being reborn. It felt like breaking my body and remaking it in her image, learning how she walked and talked and held her head. None of that existed in my physical memory, and I knew I needed as much time as possible to make it part of me."
My Week With Marilyn is out in theaters November 4. The new Vogue hits newsstands September 20.