Glee‘s Lea Michele isn’t your typical twentysomething star — and she knows it.
“I’m five foot three,” the actress, 25, tells the new Harpers Bazaar. “I don’t look like a lot of other people, you know what I mean? I look like I’m 12.”
PHOTOS: Glee stars’ love lives
And then there’s her prominent nose. “How many managers told me, ‘Get a nose job. You’re not pretty enough’? But I proved them wrong,” she says defiantly. And though her time on the FOX hit winds up at the end of the upcoming third season, “Glee is only the beginning,” she insists. “I plan on playing every role on Broadway…I want to do movies, make music.”
PHOTOS: Check out real-life yearbook pix of the shows’ stars
And the star is enamored of big-time A-listers who’ve already made it to the big screen — like frequent Glee guest star Gwyneth Paltrow. “I am obsessed with Gwyneth Paltrow…I love talking with Gwyneth. She just gives good advice. She said, ‘Don’t ever read anything about you.'”
PHOTOS: Glee’s hottest guest stars
Other faves? Penelope Cruz, Blake Lively, and Jennifer Aniston, who mimicked Michele’s ultimate idol Barbra Streisand in a recent Harpers‘ spread. (“It was awesome; I really wanted to do that.”)
Although she’s happily ensconced with beau Theo Stockman, she has a steamy scene with Ashton Kutcher in the upcoming New Year’s Eve — in which Kutcher poses in nothing but a towel. If he’d dropped the towel? “I might have blacked out.”
PHOTOS: Go behind the scenes of Glee
Don’t believe the diva rumors, she adds. “I’ve learned some lessons,” she says. “But people are going to say what they want to say. I know who I am, and I’m not perfect.”