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Although she garnered an Academy Award nomination for her role in 1998′s Hilary and Jackie, Rachel Griffiths — currently starring in ABC’s Brothers & Sisters — says that television work suits her just fine. “I have a nice balance,” she notes in the November issue of Cookie magazine.
The ability to bring new baby Clementine Grace, 4 months, to work helps. “[Clem is there about] “half the time, depending on how my days are,” she adds.
On those days when her family of five — which includes son Banjo Patrick, 6 this month, daughter Adelaide Rose, 4, and her artist husband Andrew Taylor — are together at their Santa Monica home, Rachel says they can often be found outside.
“Children are like dogs,” she explains. “They really shouldn’t be inside; They need to run and use their bodies.”
To that end, Rachel says she’s tried to emulate her own “free-range” childhood with Banjo, Adelaide and Clem, conjuring up memories of a time when “your mother would yell, ‘Dinner!’ and kids would come out of the creek or appear out of bushes.”
“I’ve tried to create a sense of danger and exploration in a safe area. My yard’s boundaries are secure. My pool is fenced, so they don’t have to worry about that. The kids know that if they go down the slope at the end of the backyard, there’s a beehive there — they might get stung, but hey, if you want to, go for it.”
Adding that “they climb trees, they swing and hang,” Rachel says that playing in their backyard — complete with playhouse, rope swings and a surfboard-like plank on springs — will often send Banjo and Adelaide “into an imaginary world.”
The couple like to expand their kids’ real world horizons with trips and vacations abroad as often as their schedules permit, however. “We have fervent periods of work,” Rachel, 40, explains, “and then we have gorgeous periods of being together and relaxed.”
Defining “downtime” as a “holiday so long that the kids grow out of their shoes,” Rachel adds,
“The kids understand the rhythm and the creative process; they know Dad goes a little nutty before [an art] show. I’ll say, ‘I can’t be with you right now, but I’ve got three days off coming up. What should we do?’”
Click below to read about Rachel’s take on motherhood in the U.S. vs. motherhood in Australia.
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Courtesy Steven Covino
