Vanessa Williams Wonders If She's Typecast to Play 'Strong Women with Attitude': 'I Always Find It Fascinating'

Vanessa Williams looks back on her decades-long career on stage and screen and asks herself, “Is it typecasting? Am I always going to play these strong women that have attitude?”

It’s true, the actress, singer and former beauty queen, 61, has stepped into the stilettos of quite a few alpha women, including her latest role, reimagining Meryl Streep’s steely fashion magazine mogul Miranda Priestly in London’s upcoming musical adaptation of the hit 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. 

But Williams, who opened up to PEOPLE in this week's cover story, is not the type to be the least bit bothered by the roles, or the cards, she’s been dealt.

“I always find it fascinating. My characters are formidable because they’ve worked their lives to create something that means something.” In that regard, she adds, “It’s very comfortable to play.”

Given her remarkable, rather harrowing introduction to the spotlight — as the first Black Miss America back in 1984 whose reign came to a shocking end amid a nude photo scandal — Williams knows exactly what it means to claw your way to having the career you always wanted.

When everything came crashing down around her 40 years ago, she got to work picking up the pieces. “I knew I was talented, so I knew there was success to be had,” she says. "I knew that there were many options that I had that were available to me, many people that would say no, and many times that I'd have to prove myself over and over again."

As she promised to do in her Miss America resignation speech, she focused her energy on pursuing her first loves — acting and music — and, against the odds, found runaway success in both.

Be it scoring a Tony nomination in 2002 for her turn as the Witch in Broadway’s Into the Woods, picking up three Emmy nominations for playing haughty editor Wilhelmina Slater on ABC’s Ugly Betty or having four songs reach the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100, Williams has bounced back from infamy in fabulous fashion.

In 2005, when she signed on for Ugly Betty, arguably her most famous diva role, “My father had just died. I had four kids in four different New York schools. I was like, ‘Do I really want to do this?’” she remembers. With her kids’ encouragement, she took the leap to L.A. and “it was the most fun TV show I’ve ever done,” she says of the hit sitcom that ran from 2006 to 2010.

As for why such strong roles, including her turn as Renee Perry on two seasons of Desperate Housewives, always seem to work for her, she says, "The older I get, I reflect on what my makeup is...Competitiveness, belief in yourself. That's in my DNA."

Now, playing Miranda Priestly, she thinks that's a good fit, too. "I don't know whether that's a reflection of some frustrated, alternate personality that I do have, but I think my skill set in what I'm given to play is they are strong women, they are certainly intimidating, and they have teachable lessons."

For more from Vanessa Williams, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.