Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps: I kept pregnancy secret in case it hit my career

Krieps was so determined to not let motherhood end her acting career
Rising star: Actress Vicky Krieps
Rex
Alistair Foster|Tom Ellen28 February 2018
The Weekender

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Vicky Krieps says she kept her first pregnancy under wraps as she feared it would jeopardise her career.

The Phantom Thread actress, 34, was born in Luxembourg and moved to Berlin where she made a name for herself in German and French cinema. When she was 26, after she was cast in Joe Wright’s 2011 action film Hanna, she realised she was pregnant.

She told ES Magazine: “It was a surprise. In my family, people become pregnant at 33 or something, not 26. And I had not been with the father long at the time. But I really thought, ‘This is another adventure’.

“And as soon as people found out, they said, ‘Well, I guess the acting’s over’. I was so determined I would not let this happen. I got cast in Hanna, and I decided I would just… not say that I was pregnant.”

In character: Vicky Krieps with Sir Daniel  Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread

Her daughter is now seven and she has a three-year-old son. She says her relationship with her ex is a “good partnership — you have to when you have kids”.

In Phantom Thread she stars as a waitress who catches the eye of a fashion designer, played by the Oscar-nominated Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, in Fifties London.

She said the film’s success has been noticed even by her children. “Recently, we walked past a poster with my son, and he pointed at it and said, ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ And then suddenly, very seriously, he said, ‘My mummy’.

“And that said it all to me: he understands what I’m doing, but at some point it’s like, ‘Please come home now. You’re my mum’. That’s the most important thing.

“Since this film came out people are always saying, ‘Oh, your life must be so different now’. And I tell them, ‘Well, I have two children, so my life is still cooking, washing, buying groceries, reading stories, and then being very tired and lying in bed’.”

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