Ten years ago, Gabriella Wilde was the ultimate 'It Girl'. Previously known as Gabriella Gough-Calthorpe, the actress and model boasted striking blonde locks and an aristocratic background that perfectly suited her casting as a 'posh totty' in St Trinian’s 2. The striking star later played a privileged lovelorn teen in the romance film Endless Love in 2014, and a snooty heiress in BBC One's hit period drama Poldark.
Now, having taken a break from acting following the birth of her third son in 2019 to pursue a career in grief counselling, the 36-year-old is returning to screens in the comedy-drama film Mother's Pride.
© Alamy Stock Photo"It's really hard to be an actress and a mother," Gabriella exclusively tells Best Quality Designer Handbag "It absolutely can be done, but with great effort and incredible resilience from the women that do it."
It's something her "unofficial" stepsister Cressida Bonas can relate to. Cressida, whose mother Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon was once married to Gabriella's father, businessman John Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, recently revealed that she's taken a step back from her acting career since having children.
"In my 20s, I was up for the stereotypical part of what I sound and look like," said Cressida, the ex-girlfriend of Prince Harry whose notable acting roles include the 2017 period drama Tulip Fever and the ITV crime drama White House Farm. "It's frustrating to be put in a box of privilege, and of my past relationship," she told the Daily Mail.
© David M. BenettFor Gabriella, who shares three sons with her musician husband, Alan Pownall, the decision to step away from acting was prompted by a desire to pursue another passion. "I was pregnant with my third child when I was just finishing on Poldark, and I decided at that point that I wanted to step back for a while and explore other things," says Gabriella, whose scenes on the ITV drama were scheduled around her second son Shiloh's feeding times. "That set was amazing. But I think that is the exception and not the norm."
For the past five years, Gabriella has been working in the grief and palliative care space. "It's been fascinating," she says. "I've always been really interested in grief, and I think on a wider scale, our relationship with death and mortality. It's something I've long been engaged with on a personal level, so I really wanted to make it a bigger part of my life."
© Darren Gerrish/WireImage"It's really hard to be an actress and a mother. It absolutely can be done, but with great effort and incredible resilience from the women that do it."
The mum-of-three is hoping to launch her own podcast on the subject later this year. "I'm speaking to different people to look at our relationship with [death] – psychologically, spiritually and culturally," she explains. "Rather than it being something morbid, it is really about how engaging with that can give us our presence and our life back."
These themes are explored in Mother's Pride, which follows a grieving family who decide to save their struggling pub by launching their own microbrewery and entering the Great British Beer Awards.
"It was quite serendipitous," Gabriella says, who plays Abi, a teacher and the childhood sweetheart of Cal (Jonno Davies), a musician who returns to his hometown to help save the pub. "In a funny way, all these worlds have come together, with the film and the grief theme, and it was all set in Somerset, which is where I live."
Gabriella, who stars alongside Martin Clunes and James Buckley, started to "really miss acting" before being offered the part, and found herself resonating with Abi's storyline.
© Entertainment Film Distributors"I think she's one of those people who's very settled in herself," says the film star. "She knew what she wanted out of life, and it was something quite simple. But that's not because she didn't have ambition, it's because she just knew what that was."
It's something that's taken Gabriella a little longer to figure out. "Abby's character has known it all along, but I've had to go on that journey of wanting all these things, then coming back to the sweeter simplicity in life.”
"It's probably the thing that's taught me the most about life, the most about myself, and continues to."
The actress left London for the countryside 11 years ago and hasn't looked back. "It sort of sounds a bit trite, but being in nature is a really big deal for me," she says. "It makes me feel way happier. Having that connection to nature and the seasons and cycles, and just having that perspective, that's a really important thing for me."
While she might be back on our screens, Gabriella says her most important role above anything is being a mother to her three boys: Sasha, Shiloh and Skye.
© PA Images via Getty Images"It's probably the thing that's taught me the most about life, the most about myself, and continues to," she says. "I definitely am not an expert. I'm learning on the job, but it's an amazing experience."
As for her future plans, Gabriella is looking forward to taking on meatier roles. "It was really lovely to open the door to acting again. I want to have more opportunities to do acting and be creative in that way, especially as I get older. I'm looking forward to the roles becoming a little bit more complex, not necessarily that young, ingénue type role.
"I'm in a place now where I just don't look that far ahead. I feel like I don't know what's around the corner, so I'm open."
Credit: Mother's Pride is in cinemas on 6 March.
