Katie Holmes hinted at 'new phase' in interview shortly before filing for divorce from Tom Cruise

Katie Holmes hinted at her state of mind in an interview conducted weeks before dropping her divorce bombshell, saying she was entering “a new phase” and “I know where I want to go.”

“I definitely feel much more comfortable in my own skin,” Holmes told Elle magazine when asked about being in her 30s, for an upcoming cover story. “I feel sexier. I think in my 20s, it’s like you’re trying too hard to figure everything out . . . I’m starting to come into my own. It’s like a new phase.”

Six weeks after Elle’s mid-May interview, the actress revealed her “new phase” would not include her husband and the father of daughter Suri, Tom Cruise.

Holmes further indicates an independent state of mind in the interview, which hits newsstands July 17, in response to a question about her identity as Mrs. Tom Cruise. “He has been Tom Cruise for 30 years,” she says. “I know who I am and where I am and where I want to go, so I want to focus on that.”

A source close to the magazine told us that during the interview — and accompanying shoot with fashion photographer Carter Smith — “Katie didn’t speak about Tom in a lovey-dovey way at all. She deflected the Tom questions and brought them around to herself.”

Go to The Post for more of the Elle interview.