Thandie Newton Says Acting Makes Her a Better Mom
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Having spent a "pretty idyllic" summer with her family in Vancouver where she is shooting the film 2012, actress Thandie Newton says she’s still trying to strike the right balance between work and motherhood. The 35-year-old mom to daughters Ripley, turning 8 next week, and Nico, 3 ½, tells the Times Online that when she comes away from doing something she loves, like acting, she’s "more alive, more self-aware…and that’s not a bad thing as a mum." She adds,
"It’s got to be better than slobbing along without being excited by what you’re doing. That creates an apathy and a kind of mild depression and it makes you too needy of that mothering side of life. I’m just going to have to figure out how to work the way I want to and be with the kids."
It’s territory she has navigated previously. When Thandie walked away from a role in Charlie’s Angels, fired her handlers and became pregnant with Ripley all within a matter of weeks, her peers believed she had committed "career suicide." Instead, the pregnancy was a revelation for Thandie, who says she found herself feeling "totally uncompromising, wild and fierce."
"People talk about pregnant women as if they’ve gone a bit mad. You know, ‘She’s a bit hormonal.’ But I felt as though I’d been introduced to myself for the first time."
Childbirth proved equally powerful for Thandie; she delivered both her daughters at home, in a birthing pool, and describes the experience as "very challenging in the best way possible." "Every fiber of your being is alive," Thandie says. "It’s like you are conducting electricity … literally creating something." She adds,
"I’d like to give birth every year if I could, just for that experience."
Ripley and Nico are Thandie’s children with husband Ol Parker, whom she wed in 1997.
Source: Times Online
