Copyright hellomagazine
Sherise Blackman, writer, director and actress, best known for her roles in BBC police drama Line of Duty and Netflix's Bridgerton, has opened up about how becoming a parent and mothering her children helped her to heal from her own difficult childhood on HELLO!'s Second Act podcast with Ateh Jewel. The 44-year-old spoke about her experiences with homelessness, meeting her husband of 27 years when she was 16, and how parenting came naturally to her. Sherise Blackman 'healed' herself through mothering Being an eldest sibling and the first grandchild, Sherise confessed that she thinks she's "always been a mother". The Bridgerton star is a doting mother to three children, whom she shares with her husband of 27 years, George. She explained: "It came very naturally to me. I just reveled in being a parent, and threw everything at it. "My kids had the best childhood because we were at museums the whole time, we did mazes, we did all the activities," she continued. "I was that mum." Sherise ensured that her children would have a very different experience growing up to her; as a child, the actress felt like she had greater expectations and responsibilities placed on her shoulder, which she did not want her children to take on. The Line of Duty actress told Ateh: "I ate every drop of their childhoods. I was so galvanized to make sure that these children were children, and they remained children for as long as possible." Raising her own kids with that warmth was a rejuvenating and healing process for Sherise, who confessed that she wanted to become the mother she needed when she was young. "I healed myself through mothering my children the way I think I needed to be mothered when I was growing up," she said. "On those mornings when we would have a little investigation, or we would go to the theatre, that was the dream that I held inside my heart as a little girl. I loved the theatre, but it was just not something that I had… nobody was taking me to see plays!" Sherise spent part of her childhood homeless Having grown up in an especially large family, with parents who "failed to show up" for her on multiple occasions, she made the decision as a teenager to support herself, which meant that she found herself homeless at the tender age of 16. "I was in very precarious, dangerous situations and I was incredibly young and incredibly vulnerable," Sherise said on the podcast. Explaining her situation growing up, she told Ateh: "There were a lot of things at play. My mum had me quite young, and I had lots of siblings, so it was kind of tough. I think I was a bit of a people pleaser, and I wanted to make sure everybody else was happy." At her core, the actress "wanted a different life", one different to what she had been born into. "I'm not in the business of assigning blame to anybody," she continued. "There's a lot of forgiveness that's happened since then. Everyone does their best with what they have." By 16, she was having to make decisions for herself – "I think I came out the womb trying to survive," Sherise said. Listen to the Second Act podcast now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and Youtube.
