Anna Friel on Gracie's 'Fantastic' Understanding of Make-Believe
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Making Land of the Lost with daughter Gracie Ellen Mary, 4, by her side was “quite weird” for Anna Friel. Although the 33-year-old actress is grateful for the flexibility her line of work affords, she tells The Independent that it has presented its fair share of awkward moments as well — like “having to explain to a 3-year-old what a cage was, and why her mummy was in a cage.” Fortunately Gracie “wasn’t upset at all” by mom’s role in the film, Anna says. “She loved it.”
“[Partner] David [Thewlis] and I have these conversations all the time, wondering how much we’ll allow her to see and is it going to freak her out? We’ve kind of just let her grow up on The Wizard of Oz, on the set. But we always tell her, ‘It’s only pretend.’ She very much understood the word ‘pretend’ from an early age. And we just think it’s fantastic.”
Still, the notion of raising their daughter in Hollywood is something that doesn’t come naturally for the couple of eight years, who are both UK expats and who have hired a British nanny to help preserve their daughter’s accent. “It’s surreal, in a way, to find ourselves raising our daughter” here, Anna admits, but since Gracie has been enrolled in school stateside they’ve pushed their qualms aside. “She’s loving it,” Anna reveals. “So now, for the first time, I think ‘Oh gosh, I’m actually settled here.’”
“You start to say ‘Let’s go home,’ and you realize that home is here, which is something I never thought I’d say, really.”
As long as the work remains steady, the family of three will stay put. “I love being a mother so much, but this is also an important time in my career where things are finally happening for me,” she explains. “I don’t ever want to regret not making the most of it, so I bring my daughter to work with me. Like any other working mum, it can be exhausting, but it’s the only way to make it work.”
Land of the Lost is in theaters now.
Source: The Independent
– Missy
