Katie Holmes has had a roller-coaster of a ride through Hollywood and the 37-year-old actress has revealed that it was all for the best. "I don't regret anything that I've done," Katie told Ocean Drive magazine in a new interview. "I've learned from everything, and everything sort of leads you to the next place. I just keep going."

The star, who has been single since her 2012 divorce fromTom Cruise, continued, "I have a very normal life, and I happen to work in an industry that's abnormal. Daily life, I take a train and a cab; it's just about getting from here to there, and I don't care how I do it. I have to get there."

That sense of "normalcy" is all the more important for Katie as she continues to raise her nine-year-old daughter, Suri. Speaking about her experiences of being a mom, Katie added, "It changes you completely in such amazing ways, and I think that you become who you were meant to be.

"Being a parent is also a source of inspiration to just work really hard. You want to set an example – and, you know, (your kids) are what drives you."

That motivation has also given Katie the confidence to branch out in her career – including a risqué role in The Gift and making her directorial debut with All We Had.

"I don't shy away from risks," the actress said. "I'm just interested in a lot of different things. I don't even think of it as a risk; I think of it as something exciting and new. As I've grown-up, I think that the harder you work the more successful you are.

"From what I have seen, the people at the top, they're just constantly working and constantly surrounding themselves with other successful, like-minded creative people."

Next year, Katie will step into the spotlight in the indie film Touched With Fire, playing a woman with bipolar disorder who is put in a mental institution and falls in love with another patient.

"I decided to throw myself into this story, a role I hadn't played before," Katie said of the part. "It was a really incredible acting experience and also a human experience because it taught me a lot about bipolar disorder and just how hard it is to live with and how it affects people's families … It was a really powerful and profound experience."