As the niece of Julia Roberts and daughter of Eric Roberts, actor Emma Roberts learned a lesson or two about show business before entering it herself. While on Bruce Bozzi’s Table for Two podcast, the American Horror Story lead was asked whether becoming a “massive movie star” was ever a professional priority for her.

“I saw very up close what that really looks like with my aunt Julia,” Roberts replied. “It’s fun and it’s great, but there is a part of it that’s really scary. And so I’ve always wanted to kind of carve my own path…Fame has never been the goal, because fame at a certain level is kind of scary.”

“Even in my later teens, I was like, I never want my fame to outweigh my work,” she continued. “Because there’s nothing scarier to me than being so famous that you’re never left alone, but also you’re not getting good jobs. And that was kind of happening to a lot of people, I think, when I was in my teens and early 20s. And that really scared me, and so I never wanted that to happen to me.”

Roberts broke out in the early-2000s Nickelodeon series Unfabulous before starring in Nancy Drew, We’re the Millers, Valentine’s Day (alongside her aunt), the TV series Scream Queens, and, more recently, Madame Web. As the relative of two Oscar honorees, she was also asked to wade into Hollywood’s intrepid nepo-baby discourse during the podcast. “I think there’s two sides of the coin,” Roberts said. “People like to say, you know, you have a leg up because you have family in the industry. But then the other side to that is, you know, you have to prove yourself more. Also, if people don’t have good experiences, maybe, with other people in your family, then you’ll never get a chance.”

She continued: “Everybody loves the kind of overnight success story. And so if you’re kind of not the girl from the middle of nowhere that broke into Hollywood, there’s kind of an eye roll of like, ‘Well, your dad was this.’ And I always joke, I’m like, ‘Why is no one calling out George Clooney for being a nepo baby? [His aunt] Rosemary Clooney was an icon.’ But I feel like also the point is, young girls get it harder with the nepo-baby thing. Like, I don’t really see people calling out sons of famous actors, not that they should be called out.”

Roberts concluded that those who criticize nepo babies “only see your wins, because they only see when you’re on the poster of a movie—they don’t see all the rejection along the way. That’s why I’m always very open about things I’ve auditioned for and haven’t gotten the part for.”