Michelle Rodriguez is deeper than you think. You might say Michelle Rodriguez has many layers. She is like an onion.

In fact, Michelle Rodriguez said that herself.

“I’m like a fucking onion, man; I’m always peeling. I never got attached to anything I was. I never fall in love with things that I believe in. I always leave room for it to evolve into something else.”

Rodriguez talked with Milla Jovovich in Interview Magazine about lots of things. But her views on spirituality and the emptiness of a celebrity lifestyle were quite poignant.

“I enjoy vanity like the best of them. But I can’t stick to any of that lifestyle for too long because, when its true colors come out, it’s empty and cold and soulless. So I have to travel and go find some real people. After Cannes every year, I end up going to some foreign country I’ve never been to before and introducing myself to a new religion—I’ll go to Bali and research Hinduism, or I’ll go to Thailand and get another tattoo from [Thai tattoo artist] Ajarn Noo [Kanpai].”

Rodriguez revealed that she wanted to write stories when she was younger.

“Short stories. Some of them were erotic stories. [laughs] That was my hobby. I just loved storytelling. That’s what I thought I would end up doing. I thought I would probably go to school and end up writing for a magazine or something.”

But instead of doing Fifty Shades of Grey long before its time, Michelle Rodriguez ended up acting. And even in that department she is a deep thinker.

“I think there are three types of actors. There are the ones that do the ego thing, which is, ‘I’m never going to look bad in a movie, ever.’ This is mostly the action film dudes, like, ‘Nah, hell no. He ain’t punchin’ me! I’d whoop his ass!'”

“Then you’ve got the activist type who bases their decisions in the development of a character on what it symbolizes to society—what the ethical code is. And then the third type is a true thespian who doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass what it is as long as it’s deep, powerful, and painful, and they will dive in headfirst. I really respect those people. Meryl Streep is amazing at it.”

“You have them all in you. It’s about who you feel like being today.”