Lea Michele was shot by NYLON’s Editor-in-Chief Marvin Scott Jarrett for the September 2012 cover wearing a Marc by Marc Jacobs sweatshirt and an ASOS pearl cat ear aliceband.

With the highly anticipated fourth season of her hit show ‘Glee’ returning to screens in the US on September 13, she is TV’s leading lady of the moment.

She talks to the mag about her early start in theatre, her ‘Glee’ co-stars, including beau Cory Monteith, and her upcoming solo pop album.

Be sure to pick up a copy of NYLON magazine when it hits newsstands on August 28.

Enjoy the extracts below.

On her days as a child actor: “I was a weird kid. I was eight years old saying I don’t want a day off. I’d like to work every day, please.’”

Ryan Murphy on Michele’s talent: “I always thought she was very original. Then I heard her sing and I knew there was nobody like her. She’s a very rare talent–she’s very specific and unusual and yet also familiar. She’s in that canon of the great singer-actresses—there’s not many of them.”

On shock value: “I feel like I’m the type of person who likes to shock people a little bit, too. For example, when I was in Spring Awakening, every night I had to do this nude scene. I always loved to find the one person in the audience who I knew was going to be uncomfortable—who throughout the show was cringing in their seat—and when [co-star] Jonathan Groff would undo my top, I loved it! I was like, ‘Take that!! How uncomfortable are you right now? I want you to be uncomfortable!”

On her upcoming first solo album: “I want to make songs where girls can just roll down the windows of their car or dance around in their rooms in their underwear, like, I hate my ex-boyfriend! or I’m so in love! Because that’s what I want [to hear]–power-girl songs.”

Credit: NYLON