Kate Beckinsale's 'Modern Dream' Come True
 Courtesy SELF |
The decision by Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen to part ways when their daughter Lily Mo, 9 ½, was just a toddler was almost certainly difficult, but the decision to put her needs first going forward was easy. Calling her blended brood — which has grown to include Kate’s husband Len Wiseman — a “modern dream come true,” the 35-year-old actress opens up about the family dynamic in the January issue of SELF magazine. For starters, Kate says, Lily doesn’t identify herself as someone who comes from a broken home.
“Last week, Lily was talking about a friend whose parents are divorced: ‘Oh it’s so sad!’ And I said ‘Do you never feel like you’re from divorced parents? Because you are, even though Michael and I weren’t technically married.’ And she goes, ‘No! Divorced parents wait in the car outside and everyone is mean to each other, and it’s not like that with us.”’
Not like that, indeed! Kate, Michael and Len all co-parent Lily as equals and often in conjunction with one another. What’s more, Michael is a frequent visitor to Kate and Len’s home — leading to more than one humorous exchange, according to Kate. “The thing you do mainly is try to focus on the good side of it and the funny side of it, which is Lily walking around the house going ‘Daddy!’ and several people saying ‘Yes?’” She adds,
“It’s kind of funny; ‘No, not you, the other one!’ Michael had a huge beard recently and I decided it would be fun if Lily got to shave it off. So we got Len’s clippers and shaved Michael. I’m sure that’s why Lily doesn’t feel like she has split parents. Your stepfather helping to shave your biological father isn’t something that necessarily happens in every household.”
Putting ego aside in order to “put Lily first” required all involved to “compromise on certain things” — and Kate feels that “everyone has done it in an incredibly gracious way.”
Click ‘more’ to read about how Lily helped shape Kate’s career.
Lily, herself, is a source of inspiration for Kate — who says she admires her daughter’s “youthful sense of possibility.” When Lily, an aspiring author, recently began to doubt her abilities she mused “if my writing doesn’t work out, I might try out for the Olympics.” While there was a point in Kate’s own career where she made films she’s not necessarily proud of, she says she doesn’t regret them. “The defining thing about my career was discovering in my mid-twenties that I was pregnant and completely unprepared,” she admits. “I’d been starting out with my Shakespeare and my Chekhov, but once I had Lily, it changed the choices I was able to make.”
“I was a single mother. I could only do jobs that didn’t mean I’d have to fully immerse myself, because that would’ve been really bad parenting.”
The film Van Helsing, in particular, is one which Kate singles out as having been made “for more practical than passionate reasons.” Of her thought process in accepting the role, she reveals “I was going, ‘Sh-t, I’ve totally got to make sure I can pay Lily’s school fees!’” Once Lily was established in elementary school, however, Kate felt free to pursue the roles she’d always dreamed of. “There came a moment when Lily was 6 ½, and I had the feeling of, ‘OK, she’s in school. She’s more independent. I really want to go back to what was more my thing.” Now, with awards buzz surrounding her role in Nothing But the Truth and a happy home life, Kate wouldn’t change a thing; She’s even contemplating writing a book.
“The whole juggling baby-acting thing has kept me quite busy, but now I’m in my little renaissance period. I’m starting to brew. I’m going to do it.”
Nothing But the Truth is in theaters now.
Source: SELF
