Natalie Dormer is a mama! The Game of Thrones alum revealed that she welcomed a baby girl in January with her partner, David Oakes, and shared details of her life as a new parent on the latest episode of the That’s After Life! podcast with hosts Esther Rantzen and Adrian Mills.
“It’s the perfect thing to do during a pandemic, is get pregnant and have a baby,” Natalie joked. “I feel like I’m probably being a bit of a cliché. She’ll probably be sitting in a bar in 30 years’ time on a date going, ‘Yeah, I’m a COVID baby!’ I think there’s going to be lots of COVID babies, ’cause what else could people do?”
The 12-week-old’s name has yet to be revealed, but Natalie says her infant daughter is “an absolute joy.” “[But] I’m never going to complain about shooting hours ever again because the sleep deprivation is something else,” she said with a laugh. Esther took this opportunity to share a bit about her own past sleepless nights after she became a parent, and mentioned that until you experience it, you can’t truly understand just how exhausting this stage of parenting can be.
“No, I don’t think you do. I completely underestimated it,” Natalie said. “And also, I have to say, you hear people say, ‘Your whole perspective on life will change,’ and ‘Your whole set of value systems will alter,’ and you sort of roll your eyes as a childless person and go, ‘Yeah, yeah, you don’t know the true meaning of life until you’ve have a baby.’ And then you have one and you go, ‘Oh, wow!’ It really does completely alter the lens . . . there’s a whole new perspective to life.”
Despite her sleep deprivation, Natalie went on to gush about her little one, sharing, “I’m in love, I’m absolutely in love, she’s a joy.” She added, “It’s a steep learning curve, and sleep has always been very valuable to me, but that’s the only [downside].”
“I’m in love, I’m absolutely in love, she’s a joy.”
Although Natalie is perhaps best known in the US as Game of Thrones‘s Margaery Tyrell, the actress says her first love is the stage and that she can’t wait to get back to work following the pandemic. However, leaving her daughter may prove to be tough, as it can be for so many new parents.
“I’m going to find it very difficult. I think, you don’t want to warp the child’s childhood experience. 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 just be with her all day and this would sort of scratch my itch of wanting to get back on the stage. But obviously with COVID, who knows when that will happen.”
And when the long work days do come back into her life, she’s prepared with a serious talent that has proved to be massively helpful in these early days of parenting as well. “I nap. I’m an A-1 napper, I’m a cat, I can nap anywhere. It’s a life skill, and I don’t have many, but I’m proud of that one. I can pretty much nap anywhere, which has proved very useful with a baby,” she said with a laugh.
