Gillian Anderson says she regrets going back to work so soon after having baby

‘I think if I didn’t feel so guilty that I got pregnant in the first season, that I might have taken better care of myself,’ the actor says

Gillian Anderson has revealed that she regrets returning to work so quickly after she had her baby.

The 55-year-old actor spoke candidly about managing her responsibilities in her professional and personal life during an appearance onToday on Wednesday. Anderson is the mother of three, as she and ex-husband Clyde Klotz welcomed their now-29-year-old daughter, Piper, in 1994. Anderson and her ex-boyfriend, Mark Griffths, also share two sons, Felix, 17, and Oscar, 15.

During Anderson’s appearance on Today, co-anchor Savannah Guthrie recalled how, after the actor gave birth to Piper, she didn’t take much time off from work. At the time she had her baby, Anderson was filming her hit TV show,The X Files.

“Ten days after you give birth — by C-section, I might add — you were back at work,” Guthrie said. “Which talk about jaw dropping. That was in the ‘90s.”

When Guthrie asked her how she “felt about that now”, Anderson confessed that if her feelings about work were different, she wouldn’t have returned to the set so quickly.

“I think if I didn’t feel so guilty that I got pregnant in the first season, that I might have taken better care of myself and been more thoughtful about what I needed,” she said. “And been more thoughtful about what I needed for my best interest at the time.”

She went on to recall some of the fears she had about her career, which had encouraged her to return to work so quickly after the C-section.

“But I think I was so wrapped up in, ‘I almost got fired, I messed up, I’ll do whatever they say,’” Anderson continued. “So yeah, 10 days after a C-section. But we’re still talking about it, right? It’s interesting. Cause, whatever it was, 30 years ago.”

Guthrie went on to praise Anderson for now becoming a voice for female empowerment, as the actor recently released a book, Want, that features anonymous letters about sex from different women. She then pointed out a common theme in these letters: women saying that they aren’t sure how to ask for their desires.

"And at the end of the day, probably what stands out the most is the degree to which women struggle to ask for what they want, both at work, in a relationship, and in the bedroom,” she said about the book. “And so, it’s worth continuing to talk about.”

This isn’t the first that The Fall star has shared her candid thoughts about becoming a mother for the first time. During an interview with Grazia magazine in March, she confessed to feeling lost after having her first child. “I didn’t know what the f*** I was doing!” she said. “You’re upside down and you feel, sometimes, like you’re slightly going mad.”

The Crown alum once again shared her mixed feelings about returning to work 10 days after her C-section, explaining: “I wouldn’t have chosen that but I had no choice.”

She also shared that when she became a parent for the second time, she managed her work schedule differently.

“[After] the second one, I didn’t work for over a year. It took over a year before I felt like I was ‘in’ my body,’” she said.