On October 16, actress Radhika Apte appeared at the BFI London Film Festival flaunting her baby bump and announcing her first pregnancy. While other celebs often choose creative Instagram posts to announce their pregnancy, Radhika decided to walk the red carpet. “I thought maybe they wouldn't notice the bump, but it was too big,” Radhika quips. She adds, “If there were no premier, you would probably have never known. I was never going to post saying, ‘Oh, I'm pregnant’. I was never going to post saying, ‘Oh, we had a child’. It's private.”

Radhika sits down to chat with us from London over a Zoom call and is candid to admit the challenges of pregnancy, which is often romanticized in popular culture. Ask her how pregnancy is treating her, and she replies, “Not very good, actually. I haven’t slept for five nights. The third-trimester insomnia has kicked in, and I just don't get any sleep, so it's been quite bad.”

Talking about her pregnancy journey so far, the Sacred Games actress shares, “I never had any plans to have children. So, this has been quite a quite a twist and quite a big turning point. It was a lot to process. I never really intended to or wanted children. (So) I also never looked into what pregnancy means or what happens when you're pregnant. What are the changes that the body goes through? There's so much sacredness attached to pregnancy that nobody tells you the truth because pregnancy is very hard. Pregnancy is not fun. Some people have a better pregnancy; for some, it's easier than other people. But it's a very subjective case. Pregnancy is very hard, and bodies constantly go through very big changes. So, it's been a hard journey. I do not wish to lie about it. It's been very hard to prepare yourself psychologically and physically for what is coming, especially if you're a very active person.” 

She adds, "The first trimester I was having such a hard time. I had terrible bloating. I was terribly constipated. I had nausea. I was filming at 40 degrees for three months straight. I was having a meltdown all the time. And people were telling me you need to be happy because you're having a child. I wanted to punch them. I'm telling you that I'm suffering and you're telling me to be happy."

The Andhadhun actress admits she and her London-based, musician husband Benedict Taylor “didn't really want to have children”, however, their initial reaction to the pregnancy was “a funny story”. “We were shocked and in denial till about two weeks ago. We don't even know how to dress a baby. Finally, it's sinking in now.”

Benedict has been a supportive partner throughout their first pregnancy, however, Radhika believes it should be the norm. “It’s also his baby, he has to be supportive. However, I do feel lucky because I feel so cared for. He looks after me. I just have to say, I feel like eating this, and that's there. But it really should be the norm. My heart goes out to those women who don’t have a supportive partner or have a dysfunctional marriage. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for them.”

During her first trimester, Radhika was working on two projects. However, her experience on set was the opposite. “There was one project which was not pregnancy friendly, in any shape or form. People were not good about it. I don't want to speak about it too much, but there was no consideration that there's a there's a pregnant person. I used to be in a difficult place, and it was not catered to at all. The other shoot that I was on was the opposite. They were so considerate. I felt so relieved and taken care of,” she recalls.

Radhika and Benedict’s baby is due in December. The actress intends to get back to work quite soon - “In March,” she mentions. Ask her if she has thought about what kind of parenting would she opt for and she says, “I'm quite old school. I believe that parents come first and not the child.”

She further explains, “People feel so scared to be called bad parents and be judged. There's so much online about what one should do and what one shouldn't do. There's so much pressure that everything becomes about the child. And I've seen a lot of my friends who have kids be unhappy for a long time. They love that they have a child but they are not very happy, they can't do anything they want to do. It's not selfish to give self-importance. There's a lot of judgement around parenting, and I don't care what people think of me and my parenting skills. My happiness is important.”