Actress-singer Janelle Monáe is more in-demand than ever, with a thriving career in movies and music.
But not long ago, she struggled to get by before hitting it big, she recalls in the new issue of PEOPLE.
"It wasn't about being famous for me ever. It was always about, first of all, can I do the art that I want to do freely, unapologetically, and can I make a living from that as well?" says Monáe, who's now starring in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
"I didn't want to have to go home to Kansas and move back in with my family," continues Monáe, who hails from Kansas City. After studying musical theater at American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, she left for a community college in Atlanta to focus on music.
There, she worked odd jobs while making music. "I was [like], as long as I can have 500 fans, that's it. If they buy all of my stuff every time it comes out, then I can just have an apartment and a car. That was really the dream for me."
The reality has been so much sweeter. The music she made at the time caught the attention of Sean "Diddy" Combs and Outkast's Big Boi, who both worked with her on her 2010 album The ArchAndroid.
Grammy nominations and global success followed: Her collaboration with the rock group Fun, "We Are Young," spent several weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2011. The late icon Prince even took her under his wing, too.
Riding high on acclaim from her music career, she branched out into acting. "It was just a matter of time," she told PEOPLE in 2016 of getting back to her other passion that she pursued in school.
That year, she played a mother figure to a boy coming to terms with his sexuality in the best picture Oscar winner Moonlight and starred as a real-life NASA mathematician in another awards favorite, Hidden Figures.
Her ability to disappear into roles—along with her enigmatic stage persona a la David Bowie, one of her inspirations—attracted Glass Onion writer-director Rian Johnson and his team. The film's casting director Bret Howe (along with Mary Vernieu) says Monáe "is able to be a chameleon."
In the twisty whodunit, she plays Andi, the bitter ex-partner of tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who invites a group of frenemies to his private island for a dinner party that turns deadly.
Her star turn is getting attention—and awards love: On Jan. 8, she accepted the National Board of Review's honor for best supporting actress. "I'm swimming in gratitude," she tells PEOPLE. "I'm so thankful."
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is now streaming on Netflix.
