Michelle Williams’ Best Parenting Quotes Through the Years: The ‘Ultimate Creative Act’

Credit: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Michelle Williams' Best Parenting Quotes Through the Years: The 'Ultimate Creative Act'

An open book! Michelle Williams has been gushing about motherhood since welcoming her and Heath Ledger’s daughter, Matilda, in 2005. Us Weekly confirmed in December 2019 that the actress is engaged to Hamilton director Thomas Kail and expecting baby No. 2. The pair worked together on Fosse/Verdon, which the Tony winner directed and produced earlier that same year. The Emmy winner was previously married to Phil Elverum. The former couple wed secretly in July 2018 in the Adirondacks and split in April 2019. Prior to their nuptials, the Dawson’s Creek alum was linked to author Jonathan Safran Foer in 2015, actor Jason Segel from 2012 to 2013 and director Spike Jonze in 2009. Williams was with Ledger from 2004 to 2007. The late actor died the following year at age 28 of an accidental overdose. When asked in September 2018 what she tells Matilda about her father, the Montana native explained to Vanity Fair: “I always say to Matilda, ‘Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes. Don’t settle. Don’t settle for something that feels like a prison, or is hard, or hurts you. If it doesn’t feel like love, it’s not love.’” Matilda has a close bond with Busy Philipps’ kids, the Freaks and Geeks alum told Us exclusively in August 2019. “They call each other godsisters, which is cute,” Philipps explained at the time. “They’re definitely … like family.” [jwplayer l9688EeC-zhNYySv2] The Arizona native, who shares Birdie and Cricket with estranged husband Marc Silverstein, explained to Us: “They’re not the same ages, but you know, they’re like cousins kind of,” she adds. “They’ll see each other once or twice a year and hang out, but they’re not quite yet… like when they’re older I think they’ll appreciate their relationships.”

Us confirmed in June 2020 that Williams gave birth to son Hart, her first child with Kail. The pair announced in May 2022 that they were expecting another baby together. The actress gave birth the following October.

“It’s just a dream come true for the whole family,” a source exclusively told Us in October 2022 of their growing brood. “[Michelle] prides herself on living a low-key lifestyle in a super private part of the world. … She was very low-key during the pregnancy and didn’t do much if any traveling, she was a real homebody and Thomas was looking after her and running most of the errands so she could get as much relaxation as possible.”

Credit: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Michelle Williams' Best Parenting Quotes Through the Years: The 'Ultimate Creative Act'

An open book! Michelle Williams has been gushing about motherhood since welcoming her and Heath Ledger’s daughter, Matilda, in 2005. Us Weekly confirmed in December 2019 that the actress is engaged to Hamilton director Thomas Kail and expecting baby No. 2. The pair worked together on Fosse/Verdon, which the Tony winner directed and produced earlier that same year. The Emmy winner was previously married to Phil Elverum. The former couple wed secretly in July 2018 in the Adirondacks and split in April 2019. Prior to their nuptials, the Dawson’s Creek alum was linked to author Jonathan Safran Foer in 2015, actor Jason Segel from 2012 to 2013 and director Spike Jonze in 2009. Williams was with Ledger from 2004 to 2007. The late actor died the following year at age 28 of an accidental overdose. When asked in September 2018 what she tells Matilda about her father, the Montana native explained to Vanity Fair: “I always say to Matilda, ‘Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes. Don’t settle. Don’t settle for something that feels like a prison, or is hard, or hurts you. If it doesn’t feel like love, it’s not love.’” Matilda has a close bond with Busy Philipps’ kids, the Freaks and Geeks alum told Us exclusively in August 2019. “They call each other godsisters, which is cute,” Philipps explained at the time. “They’re definitely … like family.” [jwplayer l9688EeC-zhNYySv2] The Arizona native, who shares Birdie and Cricket with estranged husband Marc Silverstein, explained to Us: “They’re not the same ages, but you know, they’re like cousins kind of,” she adds. “They’ll see each other once or twice a year and hang out, but they’re not quite yet… like when they’re older I think they’ll appreciate their relationships.”

Us confirmed in June 2020 that Williams gave birth to son Hart, her first child with Kail. The pair announced in May 2022 that they were expecting another baby together. The actress gave birth the following October.

“It’s just a dream come true for the whole family,” a source exclusively told Us in October 2022 of their growing brood. “[Michelle] prides herself on living a low-key lifestyle in a super private part of the world. … She was very low-key during the pregnancy and didn’t do much if any traveling, she was a real homebody and Thomas was looking after her and running most of the errands so she could get as much relaxation as possible.”

Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Life Lessons

“Matilda, it’s one thing to be completely honest as an actor — it’s another thing to be completely honest as a human being and that’s just who you are and how you live, and you teach me just by being you,” Williams gushed during her Screen Actors Guild Awards acceptance speech in January 2020. “I love you and I’m coming home.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Praise Report

“This is for you,” Williams told her daughter while accepting her September 2019 Emmy. “Like everything else.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Keeping It Real

Although the actress is worried about her daughter’s teenage stage, she told Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest in April 2019: “So far, so good. Every morning we wake up and I look to see if the transformation has happened and if it’s turned into the next level that I keep hearing about, but so far, we’re not there yet.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Fan Favorite

Matilda may not have been “super aware” of Dawson’s Creek at the time, but she loved her mom’s 2017 movie The Greatest Showman.

Credit: Shutterstock

Multitasking Mom

The Golden Globe winner is “so good at raising a kid” when she isn’t working, she told Elle UK in 2015, explaining, “I don’t forget anything. I’ve got everything covered. It’s a real luxury to have a moment when I’m not scrambling.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Priorities

“Raising the kid is the work, yeah. And it's amazing, and it's the ultimate creative act," the Blue Valentine star told Paper magazine in 2013. “That's my side project and my center project."

Credit: Richard Young/Shutterstock

Qualities

When she received a 2012 Golden Globe, Williams gushed, “I consider myself a mother first and an actress second and so the person I most want to thank is my daughter, my little girl, whose bravery and exuberance is the example that I take with me in my work and in my life.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Family Plans

“I really wanted, and I really expected or imagined, that Matilda would have siblings that were close to her age,” the Venom star revealed to GQ in 2012. “And now that she’s 6, that isn’t even a possibility anymore. So something that was making me feel impatient, that’s even removed, For whatever reason, that’s not our luck, not our path. You know, as hard as certain things have been for me, it’s harder thinking about how things will be for her. I have a lot of things that she doesn’t and some of what I have, I can give to her: The memories that I have, the objects that I have, the physical reminders that I have, the stories.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Puppy Love

When Williams and Matilda got a puppy in 2011, the little one’s first ideas “sounded like stripper names,” Williams told Ellen DeGeneres at the time. “She wanted something like, Crystal, Gem or Diamond,” she explained. “I was like, 'We can't have a dog named [that!].’ But then I was like, 'You know what? Let her have it.'"

Credit: Shutterstock

Real Reminder

“Every time I really miss [Ledger] and wonder where he’s gone, I just look at her,” she told Vogue of her daughter in September 2009.

Credit: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Holiday Festivities

“We've seen White Christmas so many times,” Williams said during a November 2022 appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan, noting son Hart loves listening to Christmas carols before bedtime. “Matilda loves those movies so, so much and I'm excited to have her show those to the younger kids.”