She was destined to do this. Blake Lively opened up to Allure in its May 2015 cover story about raising her baby daughter James with her husband Ryan Reynolds, and said she’s embracing it fully.
“I feel like I’ve figured out the most important thing to me,” Lively, 27, told the mag about life after welcoming her first child this past December. “And everything supports that.”
The Age of Adaline actress, 27, dazzles on her latest cover, which was shot this past January by legendary fashion photographer Mario Testino. Despite running on less than three hours of sleep, Lively looks fresh-faced and brighter than ever in the pics. However, the actress warned of Hollywood’s fixation with preserving youth, saying her role in Adaline and real-life stint as a mom have taught her to gracefully accept aging.
“People are obsessed with beauty and youth and with looking and feeling young forever,” she mused. “But look at a woman who is granted that: She’s trapped, because it’s tragic to be young forever.”
In fact, her daughter James has pushed her to think about death and the circle of life. “And also,” she told Allure with a pause. “Having a child makes you realize that we pass on for a reason. You think, ‘I have to go, because it makes room for you.'”
On a lighter note, Lively joked that breastfeeding her little one was “a full-time job.” She added: “I’m, like, driving down the road, pumping.”
When the interview was conducted, the superstar couple refused to reveal their baby girl’s name. “It’s her life,” Lively told Allure, which Us reported went down months ago. “She should have her privacy until she chooses not to have her privacy, just as I got to choose and my husband got to choose.” Ultimately, the couple caved last month, and Reynolds confirmed the little tot was named James.
Privacy was a big issue for Lively even throughout her pregnancy. The actress revealed she was expecting her first child on her lifestyle website Preserve last October, with an ethereal photo of her rather large bump.
“My brother took that photo—he’s an amazing photographer,” she gushed. “That moment was really neat, and I was scared to take that picture because I’m very private. I had a feeling that we weren’t going to get away with our privacy for a while.”
Lively decided to go for it and share her pregnancy with the world. “That was my way of owning that moment. I can’t be someone like Beyoncé and be like— [her 2011 VMAs announcement],” she joked. “But it was important for us. It was a struggle, because we want to keep our privacy, but we also don’t want our lives to be exploited by other people. So we did it simply; it was a quiet way, an elegant way.”
And what better vehicle to share the news than her entrepreneurial endeavor Preserve? “It taps into so many of my own passions, but it also is a business that I can control,” Livley said of her Goop–like website. “If I can be successful at this, I have security for my family and my babies… I’m in a profession, acting, where it’s really for-hire—I offer a service that people hire out. I love it, but it’s not something I can control.”
One point Lively wanted to drive home was the concept of “having it all.”
“Most of the things I do are all-consuming, but somehow I find a way to do it all,” she mused. “It’s not having it all; it’s about doing it all, but it’s dangerous to dilute that to a catchphrase.”
She elaborated: “Having it all could be having a happy, healthy family, and you could be a mom who stays at home, and that is the most admirable thing you could do. Or it could be having a profession that you really believe in, and not having a family, and doing what fulfills you.”
