Ashley Greene probably has the prettiest face in the cast of the Twilight movies.

But even with her great beauty, the 25-year-old US actress - who plays vampire Alice Cullen in the movie franchise, which ends in November - has to really work hard to build a post-Twilight career.

With horror flick The Apparition, which is now showing here, she has her first big starring role.

The movie is about a young couple (Greene and Sebastian Stan), whose house is haunted by a ghost that was unleashed years ago by some students toying with the paranormal.

Greene opens up about becoming Hollywood's latest scream queen.

Director Todd Lincoln said that you wanted to resist the whole "scream queen" thing. How tough is it to navigate that territory?

Well, the thing that attracted me to this film and to Todd was that we didn't want to make a film just like any other and make it about... cheap scare tactics.

We didn't want to make a slasher film. We wanted it to be a little more elevated and for the unknown to be the most terrifying thing.

What terrifies me is not knowing what you're up against. So, I felt like it just wasn't necessary to be screaming the entire time.

I wanted (my character) Kelly to be smarter than that and I wanted her to not run up the stairs instead of out the front door.

If you limit the amount that you're running around screaming, it's more impactful.

What's the most scared you've ever been?

Well, during this film, it was pretty awful because I try and make things as real as possible.

But when I was younger I watched a lot of horror films and at some point, hit an age where I kind of realised that, "Oh, wait, this could be real".

That was when it got scary for me.

So I had this weird thing about showering at night by myself because I'd obviously seen (the movie) Psycho and one night, my parents weren't home and the power went out.

I literally climbed out the window and went to my neighbour's house.

When you were shooting, was it ever difficult to get the film out of your head at the end of the day?

I was okay. After an intense scene, I definitely had a moment where everyone kind of knew not to talk to me.

I walked outside and it was freezing. It was February, so it was snowing and crazy. I was in wardrobe, which is definitely not a jacket. I had to walk outside and literally have two or three minutes to myself to kind of calm down.

As the Twilight series ends and you start taking on roles like this, how do you want to grow your career?

I think right now it's very fun because there are so many things that I haven't done and so many characters I haven't played.

I mean, of course I want it to be well-rounded. I'm interested in playing basically every single different character.

I certainly want to play a villain at some point because... that's... the polar opposite of Alice in Twilight.

The great thing about Alice is that she is so lovable and relatable. So I feel like it is an advantage because I feel like I can now take on those characters without having people think that that's actually who I am or what I'm like.

Is there a genre that you're dying to try?

I definitely want to do an action film. We kind of dabbled in that in Twilight and I was always the one who was there with the stunt coordinator, even when I didn't have to be.

I was like, '"Okay, teach me how to do this. Teach me how to do that."

I did martial arts when I was a kid and was extremely competitive and loved it.

Because of Twilight, how difficult is it to say goodbye to Alice and to the family that the project has been?

It has been such a huge part of my life and my career. It basically started my career.

You do get comfortable and you do become a family with these people and so it's a little weird knowing that we're not going to go back to that.

But I like to be positive and I'm like, at least I'll have it on DVD forever.

I think it has also afforded me a lot of opportunity. I just want to keep moving forward and kind of jump at those rather than being that sad about the past.

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