Rachel McAdams never wanted to be a movie star.

Despite one of the most in-demand names in Hollywood, the 36-year-old Canadian actress never had the ambition to be one of the leading names in the industry and always believed she'd end up being predominantly a theatre actress.

Musing on whether she ever dreamed of being a big screen starlet, she said: ''I think it was sort of a vague idea in my mind when I was a kid, when you think, 'What would that be like?' But it wasn't something I really meditated on or planned for in any way. I really thought I'd be doing theatre in Canada. I'd grown up doing children's theatre there, and I always imagined myself being artistic director of a children's theatre company.''

McAdams - who grew up in Ontario and now lives in Toronto - and her current film 'Southpaw' are currently earning rave reviews and she has earned acclaimed for several of her performances in movies such as 'Mean Girls' and 'The Notebook'.

However, the star has no plan for her career and instead just follows her heart when it comes to work decisions.

She told the Los Angeles Times newspaper: ''I try to shut out ideas about why you should do things. Trying to do good architecture and really designing a career? There's some attention to be paid to that, but I don't think it's everything.''