“I won’t lie, there are times when I’m like, ‘Why is this so hard?’ ” Ashley Greene is saying. “You come off a high like Twilight and then you get dropped back down to reality.”

We’re sitting in a cozy Italian restaurant near Times Square on a rainy winter evening, and Greene—who is best known for playing Alice Cullen, the cheeriest vampire in the Twilight saga movies—is laying out her game plan for making it even bigger in Hollywood.

“Twilight has given me something to skyrocket off of,” Greene says. “But now that it’s ending, there’s so much work to be done. And if I don’t do it, then Twilight’s all I’m ever going to be known for, as great as it is.”

Greene is dressed in all black, including a sleek, faux-fur Marc Jacobs vest, plus shadowy eye makeup—but somehow she doesn’t look at all goth. Instead she almost sparkles, like the moon or stars or werewolf eyes or something. Nonetheless, as she speaks, it becomes apparent that having a cult-like following at just 25 may not be quite as cool as it sounds. On the one hand, the throngs of obsessed fans make her feel like a superstar. They build adoring websites dedicated to her and fixate on every single thing she does (this category includes certain creepy folks who staked out her parents’ house in Florida and a paparazzo who once drove directly into her garage in L.A.). On the other hand, she still has to prove herself as a leading actress and audition for people who may not be Twilight fans—only now her competition is often big-time celebrities. “Basically I went from ‘dying to get a gig’ to ‘dying to get the gig that everyone wants,’ ” she says. “So now I’m in this realm with a lot of highly respected actresses, which is an amazing place to be, but also kind of terrifying.”

Read much more, and see some of the lovely photos over on Lucky