You’re used to being on camera, but was it different to have documentarians follow you for years?

Once I decided I trusted Sophie, I just pretended she wasn’t there. When you grow up in the modeling world, you get to a point where you are all the time having your guard up about how you look. There was maybe one time, I thought, oh, Sophie dear, I look a little bit fat there — [laughs] not like in my pictures. And I just say to myself, what am I doing? This is not about that. It’s O.K. to be myself.

Your stage presence is so fierce, what did it feel like to show yourself in more vulnerable, intimate moments, like meeting your newborn granddaughter?

Normally I don’t like people to see that vulnerable side of me, it’s not a side that I normally would share with the world. But when I decided to do the film, I felt strong enough, actually, to show the vulnerable side. A lot of my stage performance [persona], I found out later, was actually coming from Mas P, who was my bully, who was an abuser. And I always thought maybe that is why that stronger side was there, to protect the little girl in me. I like to call the little girl Bev [her middle name, which she went by as a child, is Beverly], and Grace is the protector. [Laughs] I’m starting to sound like Sybil.

In the film, we see how often you still have to keep people in line about how to respect your vision.