America Ferrera claims motherhood has made her "more powerful".
The 34-year-old actress – who has son Sebastian, nine months, with husband Ryan Piers Williams – admitted her life has changed a lot since she first started voicing Astrid in the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ franchise in 2010.
She said: "I didn’t have a kid when we started. I didn’t have a kid a year ago. I have a kid now.
"I feel awesome. I feel like motherhood makes me feel all the more powerful and capable and amazing.
"I feel like when Astrid becomes a mom, she too will be even more badass than she already is."
Though the dragon-based adventures are set to come to an end with third movie ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’, America hasn’t come to terms with saying goodbye to that part of her life just yet.
She said: "It’s just been an ongoing part of my life for 12 years. We played these characters in the movie and for six seasons in the TV show, so it’s just sort of a constant check-in, this world and with Astrid.
"So, I don’t think it will hit us until really, it’s all done."
Meanwhile, the former ‘Ugly Betty’ star admitted having friends who also have children have been her "saving grace" in navigating parenthood, though she doesn’t always take their advice.
She told ‘Entertainment Tonight’: "I think that everyone has their own experience [with motherhood].
"I think there are ways to give advice that are helpful, other ways that are not helpful.
"Personally, my girlfriends who are also mothers are my saving grace. Like, I reach out to them all the time to say, ‘How do you deal with this? How did you do this? How did you get back to work? How did you deal?’
"Without them, I wouldn’t know what to do. That said, everyone and their mother has advice for you and you really do, at a certain point, have to use it for what it’s good for, and then let it go and trust your instincts."
America also praised her friend Eva Longoria and their supportive circle of pals.
She said: "Look, it’s so wonderful to be able to feel the support of your colleagues, and to know that there is room and space for all of us.
"As a woman and as a woman of colour, it is easy to fall in the trap that there’s only one piece of the pie because that is what’s communicated over and over again.
"I think what’s happened so beautifully in communities of colour recently, and especially in this industry, is us denying that falsehood, saying, ‘You’re not my competition. There should be room for all of us, and let’s make the pie bigger.’
"So, if someone else is succeeding, I’ve got nothing but love and support and excitement that they’re breaking down the doors that are in front of them and making room for more and more peoples’ experiences to be represented and seen and heard."
America Ferrera more ‘powerful’ with motherhood
