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Radhika Apte opens up on her life as a new mother: It's incredible but also very hard
Radhika Apte opens up about life as a mother to her daughter, being away from the cameras in London and getting the chance to share her news on her own terms
Radhika Apte gave a shocker to her fans last year when she attended the premiere of her film Sister Midnight at the BFI London Film Festival. The actor came at the red carpet flaunting a baby bump for the first time, and now that the film has recently released in India, Radhika Apte is enjoying talking about it.
Living in London, the actor was away from the limelight, and she even gave birth to her daughter with husband Benedict Taylor, away from all the attention in December 2024. Ask her if it felt empowering being able to share her news on her own terms, and a nonchalant Radhika says, “Not really. It came out because of work only, otherwise nobody would have known. I had to attend the premiere, and I was pregnant. So, people found out. I didn't really care though. If it would have come out early or later, it wouldn't have mattered. I was never going to announce that ‘oh, I'm pregnant’. The bump was a very visible cue.”
But the actor insists that she is loving getting to enjoy this beautiful phase of her life away from the cameras. “It has been refreshing. I just love not being looked at constantly; that's quite liberating. I'm not somebody who's heavily on social media or takes selfies or pictures of everything. So, it's been nice to not look at yourself from a camera lens, because what happens in that situation is that you start thinking about yourself from the lens. It's really helping me get my focus back into my own body and mind,” she says.
However, Radhika adds that not having work during her pregnancy wasn’t a conscious choice: “I did not work because I couldn't. There was no offer or roles for me with the body I had at the moment.”
But she is enjoying exploring this phase of motherhood as she gushes, “It's a little early to say because it's so brand new and fresh, but it's incredible and amazing, and also very hard. I'm new to this motherhood, but it's going great so far.” Has she witnessed any change in herself as a mum and she quips, “I don't have the brain power to think about it. I'm on barely two to three hours of sleep every night, so I really don't know. I don't have the time to self-reflect. But hopefully in a few years I'll find it.”
Ask her if the kind of offers coming her way have changed post motherhood and Radhika says, “There's some good and a lot of crap offers, so it’s a mixture. But some good work has always come my way at any time. So, I'm lucky with that. I can say that I'll be back to work in Hindi soon.”
