Lily Rabe says her kids help her “shake” her acting roles and slip back into mom life after finishing a project.
While speaking at Chanel’s 16th Annual Tribeca Artists Dinner held at NYC’s Balthazar restaurant, the mother of three explained that though each acting job she takes is different, her need to detach at the end of the work remains the same.
“Listen, my kids always help me kind of come back to the present moment,” Rabe, 40, says. “So when in doubt, that’s what I go to.”
The Downtown Owl co-director, who is celebrating the film as an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival, shares her kids with actor Hamish Linklater, 45. Linklater also has a 16-year-old daughter name Lucinda Rose from a previous relationship.
Though typically Rabe finds it easy to get out of work mode, she admitted that filming Love & Death, the drama series currently streaming on Max, proved more difficult than usual.
“With this one I definitely had to work harder to kind of shake it,” she says. “And there were times when I didn’t want to shake it because we were sort of sustaining things.”
Love & Death is a based on the true story of Wylie, Texas housewife Candy Montgomery, who was accused of murdering her lover’s wife, Betty Gore, back in 1980. During the assault, Betty was struck 41 times with a wooden axe.
Rabe plays Betty in the show, with Jesse Plemons as her husband, Allan Gore. Elizabeth Olsen stars as Candy in the 7-episode limited series, all episodes of which are streaming now.
A previous version of Montgomery’s story hit the small screen in March 2022 in the Hulu original series Candy, which starred Jessica Biel as the title character. Melanie Lynskey played Betty.
Downtown Owl, meanwhile, is a family affair for Rabe. She co-directed the film with Linklater, who also adapted the screenplay from Chuck Klosterman’s novel of the same name.
The film “is a sparkle dark Reagan Era comedy set in the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota in the leading days up to the region’s blizzard in Minnesota’s century,” according to its official synopsis. Rabe also stars in the film, alongside Ed Harris, Finn Wittrock, Vanessa Hudgens, Henry Golding and more.
As for their kids, Rabe and Linklater have kept them far away from the public eye, not even disclosing their names.
The pair welcomed their first child together, a daughter, in 2017. Rabe announced her baby girl’s birth in honor of International Women’s Day in March of that year by posting a photo of her snuggling up close to the newborn. “Happy International Women’s Day. Today. Tomorrow. Every day. Girls are magic,” she wrote alongside the sweet shot.
The couple then welcomed their second child together in June 2020. Rabe teased the baby news (and simultaneously announced her pregnancy) on Instagram that August, posting a photo of herself with a visible baby bump.
Rabe subtly revealed her third arrival in a Father’s Day tribute on Instagram, sharing a black-and-white photo of Linklater holding a baby, whose face is just out of frame.
“To the best there is,” the actress simply captioned the sweet image of the pair.
The couple have not shared any further details, including the sex, of their new baby.