Brooke Shields has worn many hats. Now she is the labor boss.

Brooke Shields has a new office. It’s empty and she hasn’t figured out how she’ll decorate it, or even how often she’ll be there, but it’s a sign of her new and unexpected status, as president of Actors’ Equity Associationthe union representing theater actors and stage managers in the United States.

Shields’ candidacy was a surprise, even to herself. But when Kate Shindle, who had led the union for nine years, announced in April that she would be stepping down, Shields’ music director suggested she consider opening, and soon she had thrown her hat into the ring, winning in May she voted through the membership, defeating two more experienced union activists. She has already chaired her first meeting of the union’s council, and discovered that she still has a lot to learn, starting with parliamentary procedure.

Shields, of course, is one of those people who has been famous for so long, and in so many ways, that even she can’t remember any other time. She was a child model, a preteen movie star, a sex object, and a beauty icon, all before she went to college (thank you, Princeton). In the years since, she’s acted on screen and stage, written books, spoken widely, especially about depression, and become a symbol and subject for an evolving conversation about how women and girls have been sexualized by the entertainment and fashion industries.

She has had five roles on Broadway, each time replacing a lead in an existing show (“Grease,” “Chicago,” “Cabaret,” “Wonderful Town” and “The Addams Family”). She has also appeared occasionally in regional theater (“The Exorcist” at the Geffen in Los Angeles, for example) and Off Broadway (in the star-making vehicles “Love Letters,” “The Vagina Monologues” and “Love, Loss, and What I Wore,” among others).

Now, at 59, she thinks a lot about middle age. She’s recovering from foot surgery that turned heads when she wore Crocs (yellow, matching her dress) to the Tony Awards. She just started a new beauty business, To startwith hair care products designed for women over 40; she’s writing another book, also focused on aging; and she’s looking for new ways to leverage the celebrity she can never lose. That’s where Equity comes in: She says actors and stage managers were incredibly supportive when she had to jump into an unknown show quickly. Now she wants to give back.

Over lunch at B’artusi, an Italian restaurant in the West Village, she talked about her time in theater and her crash course in union leadership. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How’s the foot?

It’s both feet. It’s going to be okay. This is my sixth surgery. I really shot my feet up on Broadway, dancing in shows — thrown in, no training, on raked stages and stuffing my feet into shoes and abusing them. I’m sure it’s hereditary, too — it’s probably something else I can blame on my mother.

You just started a company, you’re acting, and the Equity chairmanship isn’t paying. Why add this position to the mix?

There is something that I struggle with and have struggled with all my life: being a public figure. You have something you have to live with, and it’s constant. So how can I make it something I don’t hate? How do I use Brooke Shields – this thing that is separate from me, that is a job, and is some kind of commodity – to make a difference for a community that has given me nothing but love and acceptance when it wasn’t cool to to cast someone who has no Broadway training? My experience with Broadway, and regional theater, and Off Broadway, is this welcoming community. Those are the people who stood behind me.

Union activism is new to you.

This is going to be a huge learning curve for me. My first time chairing a meeting was something out of Monty Python. I hadn’t learned the vernacular yet. Robert’s rules? I’ll get to know them! But if that’s my weakest spot, then it’s okay because I can learn it, or someone who can do it better can do it and I could just be wrong.

Don’t like conflict?

That will be difficult for me. At this stage of my life I am letting go of the tug-of-war. I don’t like fighting; I like to discuss.

But you’ve taken a job that requires you to ask producers for things they don’t want to give. It’s hostile.

I’m ready. I’ve had to do it in my business: let people go, say no. That’s a skill to practice and learn.

The union just announced a strike against development work because negotiations were not progressing. What is the problem?

People are not compensated fairly.

Additionally, Disney theme park artists just voted to join Equity.

We need to find out what they want in their contracts and then we need to put forward people who can negotiate well.

What is your feeling for how theater is doing?

It hasn’t fully recovered yet, obviously, from the pandemic. But it’s really great to see how many new shows there have been. There is something for everyone. You can have a “Merrily” and a “Stereophonic” and an “Illinoise” and “Appropriate” and “Mother Play.” It’s refreshing that it’s not one note.

One thing I often hear from readers is that they wonder why more staged shows can’t be streamed.

That’s a tough one. The part of theater that is theater is that you are there in person. There is a different performance every evening.

What is the first show you remember seeing?

My mother took me to “The Fantasticks” and then to Mummenschanz. Those were the big ones. And then it was ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’. I was 9 when I saw “Grease” on Broadway and during the preshow there was a hula hoop contest and the winner of the hula hoop contest would meet the cast. By the grace of something, I finally won it. And from that day on, whenever I had even a moment of doubt, my mother said, “Remember the hula hoop.”

And when was the first time you stood on stage?

I was in a scene in “After the Fall” [a 1974 teleplay]. I walk on, sit on Christopher Plummer’s lap and then walk away. I was like 8.

You always did film and commercial work. Did you do theater in college?

I’ve done every Triangle Show [The Princeton Triangle Club is a musical comedy troupe] at University. I auditioned for the dance company, but I wasn’t accepted my freshman year. That summer I took four or five dance classes a day. I went back and was accepted into the dance company.

Will you continue to act while leading the union?

As long as I’m wanted. I have a few things I’m working on now. Netflix did very well the last movie I did. I have a show in development. It would be ideal to be here in New York on a show because then I could do it all. And never sleep.

What do you want your legacy to be?

I hope that I can make many small changes that can make a big difference, and that I leave the association feeling more friendly and inclusive, and not angry or divided.