Brenda Song Had Two Life-Changing Takeaways After Filming Her First Movie as a Mom of Two

For many years now, Brenda Song has been a household name in Hollywood. But in addition to continuing her acting career, she’s also added a few more titles over the years, including being a partner to her fiancé Macaulay Culkin and a mom of two to her sons, Dakota, 3, and Carson, 2.

And while we’ve seen her balance it all beautifully over the years, and even wow us in some red carpets in the meantime, doing it all is no easy feat – especially when baby number two came into the picture.

Speaking to SheKnows for her new movie The Last Showgirl, which premieres tomorrow Jan. 10, Song got candid about navigating it all.

“I’m barely managing through it, to be honest,” she admits, candidly. “That’s what really drew me to the story, though, I felt like I could connect with each one of these characters at a certain point in my life.”

The Last Showgirl follows Las Vegas showgirl Shelly (Pamela Anderson) as she comes to terms with her dwindling career and her strained relationship with her daughter (Billie Lourd) after her long-term show announces its closure. In it, Song plays Marianne, another showgirl who’s taken under Shelly’s wing.

“For me, when I read it, Shelly was such an unconventional, she made such unconventional choices being a mom and at that time, we were coming out of strikes in the pandemic, and this was really my first job with two kids,” Song remembers. “I was kind of in this place where I was struggling with that balance really hard. I kind of was also at a cross about where I was in my career. And then when I read this, it just resonated so hard with me, because I’m like, ‘Who are we to judge the decisions that a woman is going to make for herself, for her family? Who are we to judge what is right and what is wrong? It can only be right and wrong for you.'”

Of course, the unconventional portrayal of motherhood, in which Shelly chooses her passion for performing sometimes ahead of her own daughter, wasn’t something only Song related too – it also rang a bell for director Gia Coppola.

“And it just drew me, and that’s what Gia and I were chatting about, because Gia is also a new mom, and so for me, it was so poignant for me, especially at that moment, to be telling this story, because it is really hard, and it’s an experience that you can’t really explain unless you’re going through it,” Song says.

“Society tells you ‘Live your best life, girl,’ ‘Live your dream,’ but also ‘Be a full-time mom and don’t miss out on anything, and do everything perfectly’ and it’s like, I’m trying. I’m just trying,” she says. “And I realized with me, with Shelly, with all the moms, all the women this world, with everyone, we’re just trying to survive and get through our day and do our best.”

“I think that’s what was really beautiful about this, is Shelly’s just trying to do her best,” she says. “And I feel like every day I wake up, I’m like, all I can do is show up and do my best. Be the best mom, try to be the best friend, the best partner, whatever I can be.”

Giving herself grace to try her best, and not to reach perfection, also gave her a new perspective.

“I also realized with this project, it was like the first time that I was away from my kids for a long period of time, and I was really struggling with it, and I realized that for me to be the best mom, I had to be the best me, and being the best me a huge part of that is work,” she says.

“I want to be able to show my boys in the future and be like, ‘Look what mama made when you know you guys were babies’ and ‘You allowed mama to still be her, while still being your mama,'” she says. “So I think there were so many aspects of this movie that just really, really are so special to me in so many ways.”

But in addition to being Song’s first movie as a mom of two, it was also a project that allowed her and her co-star Kiernan Shipka to flex their drama muscles after careers in comedy.

“This movie was everything that I wanted to do in the moment because it was so stripped down,” Shipka, who also plays a showgirl, says of the opportunity. “It was so about performance and the art of really making a movie. It’s like a movie movie!”

“It’s just so kind of ground floor human story and it was amazing,” she adds. “I feel like I sort of started in that space with Mad Men, and this felt kind of like a return to a human drama of sorts. I mean, I loved it, it’s such a dream.”

“It’s such a dream project,” Song echoes. “I mean, for me, I can only dream about being cast in movies like this coming from TV, especially comedy, for Gia to sort of bring me on this journey was such a dream. I mean, it’s such a special movie.”

“The script was incredible and like Kiernan said, the more information you get about who’s in it, what’s going on, you’re just like, ‘oh my god, oh my god.’ I was like, so desperate to be in this movie because it was just on every level, there was there was, I felt like there was no way that this couldn’t be an incredible story to tell, but also such an incredible experience,” she adds. “So just feel so incredibly fortunate to be on this journey with this crazy girl.”

The Last Showgirl hits theaters on Jan. 10. And for Brenda, if you’re reading this, we bet your kids are so proud of you.

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