The 34-year-old actress says motherhood makes her feel 'more powerful and capable and amazing.'
America Ferrera is all about making it work as a new mom -- and leaning on others when she needs to.
ET's Courtney Tezeno sat down with the actress and her How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World co-star, Jay Baruchel, at the film's recent Los Angeles press day, where Ferrera opened up about how life has changed since she started the animated trilogy. Most notably, she's now a mom.
"I didn't have a kid when we started. I didn't have a kid a year ago. I have a kid now," gushed Ferrera, who welcomed son Sebastian with husband Ryan Piers Williams last May.
"I feel awesome. I feel like motherhood makes me feel all the more powerful and capable and amazing," she said, before noting that she expects the same from her How to Train Your Dragon character. "I feel like when Astrid becomes a mom, she too will be even more badass than she already is."
Ferrera started playing Astrid opposite Baruchel's Hiccup in the franchise's first film, which released in 2010. A decade later, the pair can't believe that their adventures in the dragon-filled universe are coming to a close.
"[I feel] very, very proud. And yeah, it's a bit bittersweet, but I don't know that I've processed that it's the end yet. I think once the movie is out and the world has seen it, a bit of time goes by, I think then I'll absorb it all," Baruchel 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," Ferrera added. "So, I don't think it will hit us until really, it's all done."
For now, Ferrera's baby boy is keeping her distracted.
"I think that everyone has their own experience [with motherhood]," she noted. "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," Ferrera confessed. "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."
Earlier this month, Eva Longoria raved to ET about exchanging mom tips with the 34-year-old actress, calling her so "inspiring." Ferrera couldn't help but give some praise right back to Longoria, as well as the rest of her friend group, which is all about uplifting the Latinx community.
"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," she expressed. "As a woman and as a woman of color, 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 color 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,'" she continued. "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."
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World hits theaters on Friday. See more on the movie in the video below.
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