The actress stars in 'Tom Clancy's Without Remorse' alongside Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell.
Jodie Turner-Smith is celebrating her power. The 34-year-old actress covers a special January 2021 digital cover of Elle, and opens up about what it was like to film action flick Tom Clancy's Without Remorse while in her second trimester of pregnancy. Turner-Smith and her husband, Joshua Jackson, welcomed a daughter, Janie, in April 2020.
"The men think they’re hard-core, but they could never do what they do while also making a baby," she says of her male co-stars Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell with a laugh. "They just couldn’t."
Turner-Smith so enjoyed making Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, which is due out Feb. 25, that it made her want to do more action flicks in the future.
"True strength is not found in force and brutality, but in vulnerability," she says. "I would love to do more action, and action where I’m allowed to be a woman."
The actress -- who's also set to star alongside Colin Farrell in the flick After Yang, as well as an unnamed Anne Boleyn TV series -- found more of her female power when she gave birth to Janie.
"Patriarchal society really is out here, scamming women into thinking that they’re not supremely powerful beings," she says. "Because damn, it’s some goddess-level s**t."
The first months of parenthood were anything but easy, especially as they came amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Navigating parenthood at any time is difficult, and it’s even more difficult without support, when everything is shut down and you can’t really see other people or go anywhere," Turner-Smith says.
Her career didn't stop with the arrival of her daughter, rather Turner-Smith made her directorial debut with Jackie, a short film in collaboration with Gucci and Dazed magazine. Her husband, Turner-Smith says, was incredibly supportive of her work.
"[He] sat with me, being my biggest supporter and my brain trust," she gushes of Jackson, whom she married in 2019. "We watched all these references, and he let me bounce all these ideas off him until all hours of the morning."
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