ESPRIT LIBRE // Press Archive

Maternal Instincts (Soap Opera Digest 5/15/07)

How do you get along with Saoirse Scott (Jamie)? "Saoirse's great; we have a really nice relationship. She comes in and we talk and I play with her. She's just lovely."

And how do you get along with twins Carly Simon and Sam Malone Wolfe, who play baby Bree? "I love them. They're so great. I want to kidnap them and take them away [laughs]."

Were you prepared for Jessica's motherhood? "Not only do I not have kids, I'm also the youngest woman in my family, so I don't hold babies, I've never changed a diaper, so it was really funny that everybody assumed that if they threw this pretty much newborn baby in my lap, I would figure it out! Because Jessica was a new mother, it kind of worked, but if the child's nanny or the child's mom was on set, I would be like, 'How do I hold her? What do I do?' The hardest parts were picking her up out of the crib or putting her in the crib because I was afraid I was going to break her! She's just so little and it got to the point where newborn Bree got to be really heavy and I would have to hold her for, like, eight, scenes."

Did that help your arms at all? "Yes, it did. Are you kidding me?"

How is it trying to keep the babies calm on set? "You could have these kids on set for a really long time and [one] would sit in my arms and not move, not make a peep, not cry, not do anything and just totally hang out, but as they're getting older, they're running around the studio before we're shooting -- it's not that they're bad or they're crying or anything like that, they're babies and they want to run around and explore. We just did a couple scenes where she had to sit still on my lap and it just was not happening [laughs]. Also, they're so talkative. We were kind of doing an emotional scene and one of the babies was gargling and yelling and talking and laughing -- it was ridiculous, I barely got through it."

Has playing a mom on TV made you more interested in being one in real life? "Yes, it has. I just haven't spent a lot of my life around kids, so it's nice to be around kids and play with them. They're really good kids and I love them. So, yes, it has made me more interested in being a mom -- not that I was disinterested in being one before!"