When I started out, I didn’t have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

The remark is a deliberately blunt confession that reframes artistic ambition as, at least initially, a desire for public recognition. Read as self-mythologizing, it punctures the romantic narrative that great performers are always driven first by craft, suggesting instead that fame can be the gateway motive that later hardens into discipline and artistry. It also carries Hepburn’s characteristic candor: by admitting a socially “unserious” starting point, she asserts independence from conventional expectations of humility. In a broader cultural sense, the line anticipates modern celebrity culture, where visibility itself can be the primary goal, even when the skills that sustain it are acquired later.