Kat Stewart on why she delayed having a baby and whether there will be another season of Offspring.

She was scared motherhood would change her.

Actress Kat Stewart says she delayed having a child because she thought it would change her irrevocably and rob her of her career ambition.

She and her partner David Whiteley had their first child, Archie, three years ago.

In an interview with Monty Diamond from Show and Tell, Stewart said was so concerned about her career and losing her focus that she scheduled work in for dates just after the birth and didn’t even tell anyone she was pregnant until she was about five months along.

“I had this paranoia that if I had a baby — which is probably why we put it off for so long — that I’d never work again and that I would lose all my ambition and focus and that I’d be a different person,” she said.

“I would morph into a pod person and you’d never see me again.”

Stewart, who first gained attention for her impeccable portrayal of Roberta Williams in Underbelly and became a household name on Offspring with Asher Keddie, deliberately delayed starting a family.

“It was wonderful and we put off doing anything about kids for quite a while because we were so focused on work. And I wasn’t a particularly clucky person … it was a bit of an adjustment.”

She worked on Offspring right up until she was 38 weeks pregnant, which meant some artful disguises.

“We had big handbags and sometimes I was carrying pizza boxes for no apparent reason, or they shot me through potplants or through windowsills and hedges. We kind of got away with it, sort of.”

Stewart’s fears about losing her killer instinct seem to have been unfounded. She was back at work five weeks after Archie was born on the set of Offspring, and last year, she made a return to the stage in The Speechmaker.

Stewart said she thinks Archie will be the couple’s only child.

“We did leave our run on the later side,” she told Show and Tell.

“He’s a great kid. It is really good for him to be with other kids, though. Because we’ll be at the park, and he’ll introduce me to other mothers. He just gravitates towards grown-ups!”

As for whether there is going to be another season of Offspring?

“When we were shooting it [season five], we thought that was it, and it felt like you could leave it there. But it’s since shifted and shifted, and I don’t know …”

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