LOS ANGELES - American actress Michelle Williams, who has a daughter with late actor Heath Ledger, is pregnant with her third child.
She disclosed the news in a wide-ranging interview with Variety magazine. In one of the photos accompanying the article, the 41-year-old is seen cradling her baby bump.
"It's totally joyous," the fiercely private actress said. "As the years go on, you sort of wonder what they might hold for you or not hold for you. It's exciting to discover that something you want again and again, is available one more time. "
Williams married American theatre director Thomas Kail, 44, in March 2020 and they have a son, Hart, who was born in June that year. She was briefly married to musician Phil Elverum between 2018 and 2019.
She has a 16-year-old daughter, Matilda, from her relationship with Ledger, whom she met on the set of gay-themed romance movie Brokeback Mountain (2005).
Ledger, who also played the Joker in the Batman movie The Dark Knight (2008), died in 2008, aged 28, of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.
Williams recently starred in the movies Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), playing the protagonist's ex-fiancee Anne Weying.
She told Variety she is more committed to her work after she became a mother, as she continued to advocate for issues like pay equality and reproductive freedoms.
"There's nothing that makes you committed to a better world than raising a great kid," she said. "It's the ultimate creative act."
There was an uproar in 2018 when news leaked that Williams' male co-star Mark Wahlberg was paid 1,500 times more to reshoot scenes for the film All The Money In The World (2017).
Wahlberg was paid US$1.5 million (S$2.1 million), while she got less than US$1,000.
The re-shoot came about after actor Kevin Spacey was replaced by late actor Christopher Plummer due to sexual misconduct allegations.
"I grew up a lot in that moment, because doing anything in public is very difficult for me," Williams said to Variety. "But I felt like I was getting a clear message that I needed to stand up and deliver."
She began to talk to activists in the field and also went to the United States Congress to appeal for a vote on a law to close the gender pay gap.
"I saw that it's not just about a strict dollar amount," she says. "It's about self-worth. It's about establishing a market value for something. And it's up to all of us to say this is the right amount, the fair amount."
Williams is starring in an upcoming Showing Up, which is set to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival later this month. She will also co-star in The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama film directed by Steven Spielberg.
She is planning to take a break until after her third child is born.
"I wondered if I could work while I was pregnant, but I'm too tired," she said.
