Michelle Williams brings a much-needed pop of spring colour to newsstands this month on the cover of ELLE's April issue, on sale now.

The three-time Oscar nominee, whose new film, Suite Français, is released this month, looks incredible in Louis Vuitton, photographed by Kerry Hallihan.

There's no denying she's come a long way from Dawson's Creek and, in our exclusive interview, she discusses navigating Hollywood from film set to stage - and back home, where she simply plays 'mom' to Matilda, eight, her daughter with the late Heath Ledger.

‘You truly never know what’s going to happen,' she says of the unpredictability of theatre (having just ended a run playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway). 'And to have things go wrong, or to make mistakes in real time and then be able to assimilate whatever is different is a tremendous feeling. To find in those moments that one doesn’t stop, or perish, or run away, but that you can rely on yourself to process things and keep going.’

If that sounds exhausting - it is.

‘I feel like I’m so good at raising a kid when I’m not working,' she adds. 'I don’t forget anything. I’ve got everything covered. It’s a real luxury to have a moment when I’m not scrambling. I feel like most of my life, I’m trying to do two things at once, both to the best of my abilities.

'So that leaves me feeling pretty exhausted. I’m the person who falls asleep all the time. You invite me over for dinner or to a party, and there’s a whole scrapbook of pictures of me napping. I’ve even been given a nickname because of my snoring.’

Understandably, she also has little time for social media. In fact, rather than catching up on Twitter on her phone, you'll find Williams reading poetry instead. Really: 'I love poetry because it’s like a shot, like an attack, like a dose. And for a person who doesn’t have very much free time, it does its work very quickly. So I read poems on my phone when I wake up in the morning.

'It opens you up for the rest of the day, and suddenly your life becomes a little more observed. And when it becomes more observed, it can’t help but start to become more beautiful.’

Now that's a sentiment we're all for.

See the full fashion shoot and read our interview with Michelle Williams only in the April 2015 issue of ELLE UK, out on newsstands and available via Apple Newsstand now.

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