Natalie Dormer, the British actress made famous in the United States for her breakout role in “Game of Thrones,” has been busy during her COVID-19 lockdown.
She made a baby! She just revealed she gave birth to a daughter in January.
The 39-year-old actress and partner David Oakes have been together since 2019, so the timing seemed right.
The couple quietly welcomed their first child into the world earlier this year. Dormer joked that getting pregnant was the “perfect thing to do” during the coronavirus lockdown.
“It’s the perfect thing to do during a pandemic – get pregnant, have a baby,” she told friend Esther Rantzen on her ‘That’s After Life’ podcast.
“I feel like I’m probably being a bit of a cliché, she’ll probably be sitting in a bar in 30 years’ time one day going, ‘Yeah, I’m a COVID baby.’
‘I think there’s going to be lots of COVID babies because what else can people do, maybe like blitz babies?”
Natalie is going through all of the travails of nursing a newborn, whose name remains a secret, but calls motherhood an “absolute joy,” even if sleepless nights are taking a toll.
“She’s just three months. I’m never going to complain about shooting hours ever again because sleep deprivation is something else.
“People say, ‘Your whole perspective on life will change, and your whole set of value system’ and you sort of roll your eyes and go ‘yeah, yeah’ – and then you have one and you go, ‘Oh. Wow!'” she said.
“I’m in love. I’m absolutely in love, she’s a joy. Sleep has always been quite important to me –that’s the only downside, but you know nature is so clever, the hormones kick in. So you regret it.”
However, the former ‘Tudors’ star has a valuable “life skill” in being able to nap anywhere.
“I love a lunch break because I nap. I’m a cat, I can nap anywhere. It’s a life skill, and I don’t have many but I’m very proud of that one, which has proved very useful with the baby.”
The ‘Hunger Games’ actress is worried about working in film and TV with a young child because she doesn’t want to “warp” their childhood.
So she thinks now is the “perfect time” time to return to the theatre, once live performance is allowed to take place again.
“People in the industry that I’m in do lean on nannies, and they do that for a reason; so that they can take children with them.
“But, I mean for me, this is the perfect time to go back to the stage, because then I could be with her all day,” she said.
“But with COVID, who knows when that will happen. I really feel for our theatres around the country, there’s hard times.”
Dormer was first exposed to American audiences in her role as Anne Boleyn on the Showtime series “The Tudors,” which aired from 2007 to 2008.
Her stage debut was at Britain’s Young Vic in 2010 in the play Sweet Nothings. She portrayed the Duchess of York in Madonna’s film “W.E.” (2011) and Private Lorraine in “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011).
From 2012 to 2016, Dormer played Margaery Tyrell in the HBO fantasy TV series “Game of Thrones,” which introduced her widely to U.S. audiences.
Dormer has raised eyebrows for appearing nude in some productions, but she’s very defensive about being misrepresented.
“To set the record straight, I have never been comfortable doing sex or nude scenes. Are you joking? How many people would be?” she told The New Statesman in an interview.
“My job specification is finding motivation in the text. I turned down roles involving sex, solely because of the way I am misrepresented. I’m terrified of perpetuating that clickbait image of me.”
She most recently appeared in Showtime’s 2020 dark fantasy series “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.”