PHOTOS: Madonna's life in pictures

The busy period is just the latest iteration of a career of perpetual self-reinvention, one that has earned her a reputation as a reliable provocateur and miner of fresh cultural territory. But many of the things Madonna has sung about, done and worn over three decades that have been incendiary — teenage pregnancy, interracial kissing, cone bras — have since become mainstream. To attempt to live one step ahead of the moment indefinitely must be exhausting.

But in an interview at her sprawling Sunset Boulevard home, Madonna said she's driven by something much more stimulating — an inquiring disposition.

"I don't like to repeat myself," she said. "I'm a curious person who's interested in learning, and I like to take the road less traveled by. That's just my nature, so perhaps that leads me to subject matter or controversial or subversive waters. I don't know. It's not something that's intentional. I'm not calculating being subversive or trying to be ahead of people. I just work on things that interest me."

PHOTOS: Madonna's life in pictures

Madonna had just returned home from a Golden Globesrehearsal, where she practiced presenting the award for foreign language film. "There's only one country that's a little tricky — that's China," she said, nursing a cup of tea in a sitting room lighted by dozens of woodsy-smelling candles and decorated with rich fabrics, seven guitars and a grand piano. Compact, clad in all black, with a dancer's erect posture, she is that uncommon 53-year-old who can still get away with wearing a glittering, golf ball-sized skull ring.

(In less than 24 hours, she would be accepting a Golden Globe for "Masterpiece," a song she performed and co-wrote for "W.E.," and deflecting a sarcastic barb from host Ricky Gervaisabout being "just like a virgin." "If I'm still just like a virgin, Ricky, then why don't you come over here and do something about it?" Madonna taunted. "I haven't kissed a girl in a few years — on TV.")

In "W.E.," an unhappily married modern Manhattanite named Wally (Cornish) develops an obsessive curiosity about the romantic life of Wallis Simpson (Riseborough), the divorced American for whomBritain's King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy) famously abdicated the throne in 1936. Wally's visits to a 1998 auction of the couple's estate serves as a narrative link between the periods — and a location for her flirtations with a handsome security guard (Oscar Isaac).

"I liked the idea of examining the cult of celebrity," Madonna said. "That Abbie's character would be looking at this story and thinking, 'Wow, I want that,' the way people do with famous people. They think that they have this kind of a life, and so they follow them around with this fairy tale notion of who they think they are."

At home, Madonna had a much softer, more vulnerable manner than her stage persona. She spoke slowly and deliberately, with no trace of the British accent that drifted into her diction a decade ago when she moved to London with now ex-husband English director Guy Ritchie. It's clear, however, that she's a woman accustomed to having things the way she wants them. "Ooh la la, I can't take this anymore," she said, yanking the cord out of a phone that wouldn't stop ringing.

As a woman once paired with such men as Warren Beatty and Sean Penn, Madonna is undoubtedly well equipped to direct a movie about a famous romance experienced from the inside. She researched and wrote the script for "W.E." with Alek Keshishian, the director of her 1991 tour documentary, "Truth or Dare," over three years, immersing herself in letters between Edward and Wallis and plastering the auction catalog pages of their belongings on the walls of her home in London.

"What they did was pretty controversial," she said, explaining her interest in the couple. "I found her to be a very complex person, and I found his sacrifice to be unusual.... People don't just get up and walk away from the most powerful position in the world. It's kind of unheard of."

Madonna said she supplied the bulk of the movie's $15-million budget, as well as several of her own furnishings and pieces of jewelry. While filming one scene, she was unhappy with the curtains and sent an assistant to tear down some gray satin drapes from her home.

"Madonna's work ethic is unrelenting," said "W.E." costume designer Arianne Phillips, who has been the singer's stylist for 15 years as well as creating the costumes for such movies as "Walk the Line" and "A Single Man." "She does whatever it takes to get the job done. She's a multitasker creatively."

"W.E.'s" 54-day shoot in 2010 spanned New York, London, the English countryside, Paris and the South of France. "It was hell," Madonna said. "In a way, I was very naive. I wrote the script, and I let my imagination go, and I didn't really think of the practicalities of all the different locations I had written and all the different places I was gonna have to go."

Critics at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, where "W.E." premiered last year, found the most to praise in the film's look — its stylish re-creation of Wallis and Edward's decadent lifestyle. They were less impressed, however, with Madonna's period-bridging storytelling, with the Hollywood Reporter calling "W.E." "as easy on the eyes and ears as it is embalmed from any dramatic point of view." The Weinstein Co. acquired the film's U.S. rights ahead of its festival premieres and will open "W.E." in a limited release, beginning with four theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

Madonna said she hopes her movie will find its audience among women, who may relate to Wally's naive fantasies about Wallis' life, and the strength she draws from learning the more complex story. "There's three love stories in the film: There's Edward and Wallis, the blossoming love story between Wally and Evgeni, and there's the love affair between the two women," she said. "It's an important mythological story to tell ... of a woman helping another woman. I don't think it's something that we see very often in films. Mostly, we see women sabotaging other women."