“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 Twilightand 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.”

Greene is moving like mad to get what she wants: The fourth Twilight movie came out in November and grossed $138 million over the opening weekend; soon after that she shot four episodes of ABC’s Pan Am; this month she’ll costar in the quirky film Butter and appear in ad campaigns for DKNY and DKNY Jeans (“I love how Donna Karan designs for real women with curves,” Greene says); later this year she’ll appear in the final Twilight movie, take her first lead role, in a summer horror flick called The Apparition, as well as costar in LOL with Demi Moore and continue her gig as the global ambassador for Mark cosmetics. “I mean, I think I’m doing all right,” Greene says as raindrops pelt the restaurant’s windows. “But the main focus is trying to solidify my spot in Hollywood because, you know, I’m not there yet.”

This sense of insecurity has driven Greene—with good results—since childhood. “My mother put me in modeling classes because I had low self-esteem,” Greene says. “I was friends with older people, so I was always around someone more mature who boys responded to. I think that kind of messed with me.”