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" Ali Larter is coming off a very long night. &amp;quot;I was up until 6 a.m.,&amp;quot; she says, stifling a yawn. &amp;quot;I had dirt all over me, twigs in my hair, and blood and scrapes covering my face.&amp;quot; No, Ali didn&amp;#039;t get into a scuffle with a wild animal \u2014 she was shooting nighttime scenes for NBC&amp;#039;s Heroes, on which she plays Tracy Strauss, a genetically modified triplet coming to terms with her unique gifts. (Ali spent the past two seasons playing Niki and Jessica Sanders, two of Tracy&amp;#039;s siblings.) And though she&amp;#039;s understandably wiped out, she certainly doesn&amp;#039;t look it. There&amp;#039;s not a dark circle in sight, and her long blond hair appears to be freshly blown out. She&amp;#039;s dressed in a beige Dolce &amp;amp;amp; Gabbana pencil skirt, a fitted white tank top, 5-inch black platforms, and diamond earrings. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a big fan of glamour,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s something I don&amp;#039;t think there&amp;#039;s enough of in Hollywood anymore. I enjoy putting on a sexy dress and heels. I want to work it.&amp;quot; While her character is undergoing somewhat of an identity crisis, Ali, at 32, has reached a confident, peaceful place. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m figuring out how to enjoy the fruits of my labor,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m making a conscious effort to slow it all down.&amp;quot; And given the fact that she&amp;#039;s spent the past several months filming long hours on Heroes and the upcoming flick Obsessed, with Idris Elba and Beyonc\u00E9 Knowles, she&amp;#039;s due for some downtime. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m in a stage where I feel like I need to retrain my mind, because since the beginning of my career, I&amp;#039;ve been such a fighter and a little hustler and someone who just tried to stay afloat in this business.&amp;quot; Ali&amp;#039;s r\u00E9sum\u00E9 has grown considerably since she first came to Hollywood. Long gone are the days when she was known simply as the girl in the whipped-cream bikini in 1999&amp;#039;s Varsity Blues. After appearing in several movies (Legally Blonde, A Lot Like Love, and Resident Evil: Extinction) and starring in a TV show, the former teen model has hit her stride... and not just professionally. In December 2007, Ali got engaged to actor Hayes MacArthur, whom she met on the set of National Lampoon&amp;#039;s Homo Erectus. &amp;quot;Since I was 15 years old, all I wanted was to find the guy I was going to marry,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;My heart got broken so many times because I put so much pressure on it. And then\u2026I got blindsided. [Hayes] showed me the way, and all was right. This is how it&amp;#039;s supposed to be.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s clear the engagement has had a calming effect on Ali. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been in a lot of fiery relationships, and it is so exciting,&amp;quot; she admits. &amp;quot;But there&amp;#039;s a more profound feeling when the love is just real and not so painful.&amp;quot; Even Hollywood&amp;#039;s abysmal marriage statistics can&amp;#039;t dampen Ali&amp;#039;s optimism. &amp;quot;You know it&amp;#039;s right when you feel this undeniable connection and chemistry,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;But to sustain a marriage for 50 years, you have to get real a little bit and find someone who is understanding and who you can grow with....My mom always says, &amp;#039;Marry the man who loves you a millimeter more,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says, laughing. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a hopeless romantic,&amp;quot; says Ali. &amp;quot;I love true love, and I&amp;#039;m a woman who wants to be married for a lifetime. That traditional life is something that I want. It may be unconventional [in Hollywood], but we&amp;#039;re going to do the best we can to keep the unit together.&amp;quot; Ironically, in Obsessed, she actually causes strife in Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s character&amp;#039;s marriage by playing the other woman. (&amp;quot;Beyonc\u00E9 and I have a huge fight sequence,&amp;quot; says Ali. &amp;quot;We really go at each other. It was hysterical.&amp;quot;) When asked how she and her future husband will deal with the threat of infidelity, Ali responds: &amp;quot;There has to be a deeper desire to want [a committed relationship]. It&amp;#039;s much easier to cheat than it is to be loyal. Everyone goes through down times. You just don&amp;#039;t put yourself in those situations, you know? Come on!&amp;quot; Ali attributes her frankness to her Cherry Hill, New Jersey, upbringing. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a directness and a feistiness to being from Jersey,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;That, to me, is sexy and fun.&amp;quot; And it&amp;#039;s also made Ali what she calls a liver\u2014always up for going to sporting events, to plays, or out with her core group of girlfriends. &amp;quot;I like to fly by the seat of my pants,&amp;quot; she says, gesturing excitedly with her hands and nearly knocking her fork to the floor. &amp;quot;If I have a day off, I want to get on a plane and go to Paris! If I have a couple hours off work, I want to run to the market and make a four-course meal. I like to do things that are unexpected.&amp;quot; As the interview draws to a close, Ali muses on the state of her life. &amp;quot;I work on a TV show I love, I have the opportunity to do movies with actors I respect, and I&amp;#039;m in love with the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, who pushes me and excites me,&amp;quot; she says with a grin that&amp;#039;s sparkling almost as brightly as her sizable emerald-cut engagement ring. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s this fighter in me that kind of needs to be put to rest a little bit. I don&amp;#039;t need to be so tough to protect myself.&amp;quot;         Star Style Evolution: Ali&amp;#039;s Fashion Makeover  Despite a platoon of primpers, celebs take years to hone their paparazzi-worthy hair and makeup looks.  Check out how this feisty star&amp;#039;s look has evolved.           Celeb Hairstyles: Ali Larter  Check out her style transformation! These &amp;#039;dos are red-carpet worthy.   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<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a2783/ali-larter-cover-interview/>