The Best Man Holiday premiered this weekend and one of the stars, Nia Long, recently opened up about balancing filming, parenting duties and much-needed “me” time. Long is the mother of two boys, Kez, 2 and Massai, 13, and says she wouldn’t trade not one day of her life. Long shows all working mothers that balancing career and family isn’t an option, it is a necessity. –Joi Pearson @joiapearson
Nia on getting back to work after having her kids:
“This business will give you breaks even when you don’t want breaks, because after your next gig, it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’ve arrived.’ It’s like, ‘Oh my God, what’s my next job?’ And I think every actor feels that panic, so it wasn’t like I called my agent and said, ‘I’m having a baby, and I’m not coming back for two years.’ It was more like, ‘I’m having a baby,’ and they stopped calling me for a while, and then once the baby was born, and I was ready, the conversations gradually started to happen, and eventually you get a job. I admire the women who can have babies and jump right back to work. I don’t know how they do it. As a nursing mother, I couldn’t sit there and just pump all day. I needed to be close to my baby.”
Nia on still having quality time with her oldest, even though he’s a teenager:
“My 13-year-old, every now and then, he’ll be cuddly with me. Sometimes you just have to tell them, ‘I miss snuggling with you.’ There are different ways that they show you that they need you, like him calling me today and crying and saying, ‘I really want you to help me study.’ ”
