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Katie hinted at new phase

New York Post - Page Six
7/5/12

Katie Holmes hinted at her state of mind in an interview conducted weeks before dropping her divorce bombshell, saying she was entering “a new phase” and “I know where I want to go.”

“I definitely feel much more comfortable in my own skin,” Holmes told Elle magazine when asked about being in her 30s, for an upcoming cover story. “I feel sexier. I think in my 20s, it’s like you’re trying too hard to figure everything out . . . I’m starting to come into my own. It’s like a new phase.”

Six weeks after Elle’s mid-May interview, the actress revealed her “new phase” would not include her husband and the father of daughter Suri, Tom Cruise.

Holmes further indicates an independent state of mind in the interview, which hits newsstands July 17, in response to a question about her identity as Mrs. Tom Cruise. “He has been Tom Cruise for 30 years,” she says. “I know who I am and where I am and where I want to go, so I want to focus on that.”

A source close to the magazine told us that during the interview — and accompanying shoot with fashion photographer Carter Smith — “Katie didn’t speak about Tom in a lovey-dovey way at all. She deflected the Tom questions and brought them around to herself.”

Holmes also says in the piece that being married to Cruise didn’t help her career, and that she had to work harder because of the role.

“Things are not handed to anyone,” Holmes says in excerpts exclusive to Page Six. “If anything, you work a little bit harder when you’re in such visible circumstances.”

Holmes subsequently filed for divorce June 29, reportedly catching the “Rock of Ages” star by surprise while he was filming in Iceland. Holmes also fled to her own apartment in Chelsea.

The Elle piece — which went from a good get to a hot property with the divorce news — was not pegged to any of Holmes’ films, but to her fashion line, Holmes & Yang, which she launched with friend and stylist Jeanne Yang, and is being sold at Barneys.

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