It’s a sunny Auckland day when the Weekly catches up with Anna Jullienne as she enjoys the final hours of relative peace with her one-year-old daughter Nina before her rambunctious boys Jude and Ted arrive home from school.
“My boys can be quite rowdy sometimes,” she says with a laugh. “All three of my kids are hurricanes of mess and destruction, so when I come home after dropping them off at school, it looks like my house has been burgled by someone who also made themselves breakfast and lunch.”
Despite the chaos, it has been a joyful year for Anna and her husband James after welcoming their third child, first daughter Nina, in June last year. Though they’ve had her mother and in-laws around to help, Anna says she has definitely felt the change.
“The jump from one child to two we noticed a lot because you’ve amplified the craziness in the house,” Anna tells. “Now with number three, it’s the busyness, the messiness and the noisiness that has increased.”
And while it has been a big shift as parents, Anna says brothers Ted, eight, and Jude, five, are now more interested in their own lives rather than playing with their baby sister.
“They love her, but Ted’s doing his own stuff, and Jude was really affectionate and sweet with her but now that she’s a toddler and wanting to play with his toys, they’re having their own little wars.”
The busy mum’s adorable “hurricanes of mess and destruction” (from left) Jude, Nina and Ted.
As a busy working actor, Anna is no stranger to balancing the demands of motherhood with her job. The last time Anna was in the Weekly pages, she was in the early months of her pregnancy with Nina while treading the boards as Melania Trump in Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Two Ladies.
Then, two weeks after she gave birth, Anna was back to work on the third season of Three’s comedy Mean Mum.
“I can hardly remember a single thing about the whole season,” she declares. “I was in complete brain fog – it’s all a blur.”
Though she was used to working while pregnant, Anna admits that returning to work so soon after giving birth brought on a completely new kind of anxiety.
Support from Mean Mums Morgana (left) and Aroha has meant a lot.
“Even though I had six months to get my head around it, it was quite daunting in the months leading up to it,” she remembers. “Two weeks postpartum is definitely not my ideal working scenario. You don’t really feel camera- ready when you’ve just had
a baby.”
Despite the nerves, Anna says if she had to do it on any set, she is happy it was with her fellow Mean Mums Morgana O’Reilly and Aroha Rawson, and their amazing crew.
Almost every person involved on and off the screen are women, and many are mothers themselves, which made for a very supportive and understanding environment as they worked around Anna and baby Nina’s schedule.
“It is more women on set and in production than I’ve ever had at any job before,” tells Anna. “For the time that I was in – just having given birth and breastfeeding – it was so nice to be surrounded by people that could relate to what I was going through.”
And she adds there were some positives to leaving her primary school-aged boys at home with the grandparents while she went to work.
“Someone makes your coffee, you get fed lunch and you get to go to the toilet alone! There are definitely some perks.”
Though the year is quickly coming to a close, Anna still has a lot to look forward to as she celebrates her 40th birthday in November – and the former Shortland Street star says she can’t wait!
“I love my birthday,” Anna enthuses. “I never understand why people don’t like to make a big deal about their birthday.”
Anna is known in her household for her impressive decorative cakes, so she’ll be sure to whip up some delicious confection for her own celebration before the family departs to a yet unknown but sunny location.
As she says goodbye to her 30s, Anna shares she is delighted to be surrounded by a beautiful family and still have a thriving career, so she only has three wishes for the future.
“I have no big plans for the next decade,” she confesses. “I’m just going to keep surviving, keep my three children alive and hopefully do a bit of acting in between!”
Watch Mean Mums on Thursdays at 8.30pm on Three.
