By Patricia Uyeh,

American soul queen, Mary J. Blige, who covers the latest W magazine new Art issue had talked about her role in her new movie, challenges she has faced and her career path.

According to the singer,  the movie helped her realize how excessively concerned she was about her appearance. She said:

“I didn’t realize how vain I was until I started working on Mudbound. Once I saw how my character, Florence, lived [in a shack on a farm in Mississippi], I thought, Wow, I’m really a vain person. When I went to the movie set to do the first day of fittings, I was Mary J. Blige: I had just done a tour and a show, so I was all, you know, I had wigs and weaves and all sorts of things going on, and Dee Rees was like, ‘No! We want to see you.

” You can’t have a perm, you’re going to have minimal, minimal makeup.’ And I was like, ‘What about lashes?’ And she said no, and I was like, ‘Really? Florence doesn’t have lashes?’ That part was a lot.”

She further stated that she hopes to get to a point where she is finally at peace with herself and has outgrown her insecurities. She said:

“I want, at some point, to not have to work so hard. I want peace of mind and acceptance of self, totally. I know that’s an ongoing process, so every single day I’m working on that, and it’s been hard ever since this challenge I’m having with this divorce. It was such a terrible thing. It made me see myself as ‘I have to be better than this’: I was never good enough; I was never pretty enough, smart enough. And there was someone chosen over me. It was like, I can’t stay, but it really let me see, Mary, you are better than that. You have to continue to grow”

Photo credit: Billboard.com