Blake Lively is very "shy".

The 'Gossip Girl' star believes her and her husband Ryan Reynolds are better at opening up when they are acting and she feels she expresses herself best when she's in character.

She told the new issue of Glamour magazine: "My husband and I are really shy people who express ourselves best when we're acting, when we're hiding as someone else.

"So the fact that very shy people have to share that shy person with the world - and are sometimes hurt by it - it's very weird emotionally."

Meanwhile, Blake - who has James, two, and Ines, 10 months, with Ryan - previously admitted Googling herself caused her to suffer from "full depression".

She explained: "I have [Googled myself] before and it's just ended in full depression. So I think it's a good rule of thumb not to Google yourself because the Internet is not nice."

However, family makes Blake incredibly happy.

She added: "We've both given up projects that we really love because we can't keep our family together. People often think their career is something they have to chase and maintain, but for us, we said, 'Let's always chase and maintain our personal life.'

"This is a career that's like the stock market: You've got to stay hot while you're hot. But your family, that's the real thing that gives you security and success and happiness."

And the blonde beauty is keen to raise her kids in the same "normal" way her husband was brought up.

She shared: "Ryan had a nice, normal upbringing, and we want our kids to have the same normal life that we had. We don't ever want to rob them of what we had, because we'd feel really selfish.

"I'd rather not have to deal with it at all, but we knew the lifestyle we were getting into, and while it's hard ... it's another thing when it's our child. She didn't have the opportunity to make a decision about what she wants."