Andrew Lipovsky/NBC(LOS ANGELES) -- Blake Lively wants people to know she doesn't wake up looking red-carpet perfect -- but she doesn't wake up looking like a drug-addicted hooker, either.

The actress appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night to note how a before-and-after Instagram image of herself and her The Rhythm Section character's onscreen look was misunderstood.

For the record, her character hits the skids after a family tragedy, leading her to a life of drugs and prostitution for a time.

"[The makeup artist] did this really rough look," Lively told Fallon, referring to the split-screen pic, showing her normal face, along with her sporting frizzy hair, bags under her eyes, and patchy skin. "[But] then... people were saying, 'Wow, Blake bravely shows what she looks like before and after makeup."

Blake explained, "Some people think that's what I look like without makeup, which I find very offensive because that takes an hour for her to make me look like [bad]."

But Blake pointed at the "before" photo, noting, "This also takes an hour to make me look this good."

She laughs, "I'm sort of vacillating between my vanity, which is like wanting to be like, 'I don't actually look like that!' But also being a feminist and being like, 'why do we expect women to wake up looking like this? This isn't realistic that you wake up this beautiful!' But I would like people to believe that I wake up looking this beautiful."

The Rhythm Section, which also stars Sterling K. Brown and Jude Law, opens Friday.

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