Even in the best of times, pregnancy is a difficult time for women physically and emotionally. They need to balance their medical needs with their nutritional needs, and for women in Hollywood, a place where image is everything, that burden is even more intense. Many women must continue to act and perform while pregnant, remaining camera-ready even as their bodies are in transformation. From spinning pregnancies into storylines to women doing stunts while totally unaware of their own pregnancy, here are the top celebrities you didn’t know were pregnant while filming.
Courteney Cox
In 2004, Courteney Cox gave birth to her only child with her ex, David Arquette. The birth came just a month after the “Friends” series finale—a major milestone in the actor’s career. She was pregnant throughout the entire last season, but rather than incorporating the pregnancy into Monica’s storyline (it was already established she couldn’t have children of her own with Chandler), they used creative angles to shoot around her baby bump.
Lisa Kudrow
Courteney Cox wasn’t the only one on “Friends” to deal with the intense demands of filming while carrying her first and only child. During Seasons 4 and 5, Phoebe had a storyline in which she served as a surrogate for her newly found half-brother, Frank. When she was supposedly carrying Frank’s triplets, she was actually pregnant with her son Julian. The whole time, it was hidden in plain sight as a stage pregnancy.
Gal Gadot
This actor had the added challenge of filming an action movie while production on “Wonder Woman” was happening. She was pregnant with her second daughter, Maya, and said she decided to hide her condition during filming because she didn’t want to get preferential treatment. She had to show up to work wearing sunglasses and carrying a “jug of water with huge pieces of ginger.” During reshoots, she was five months pregnant and had to wear a green screen cloth over her belly, which was then made to look flat in editing.
Scarlett Johansson
Another major member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the 2010s was Scarlett Johansson, who also refused to put her action-movie career on hold while pregnant. She filmed “Avengers: Age of Ultron” while pregnant, but unlike Gal Gadot, her coworkers were well-aware of her condition, with co-star Chris Evans saying, “I’ve never met a woman more happy pregnant than Scarlett. On the last day of shooting, she could barely put a sentence together, but she timed it perfectly.” Johansson relied heavily on stand-ins during production, shouting out her stunt double Heidi Moneymaker.
Kerry Washington
Kerry Washington has tackled all sorts of roles throughout her career, from playing Alicia Masters in the “Fantastic Four” franchise to a stellar performance as Broomhilda von Shaft in 2012’s “Django Unchained” and her most famous role, as Olivia Pope in “Scandal.” While she was shooting, she filmed through two pregnancies. Her first was during Season 3, where production hid her condition by blocking her stomach from the camera view, while Washington struggled to stay in character. During the second pregnancy, the production team used many of the same techniques throughout the season.
Ellen Pompeo
This “Grey’s Anatomy” star first rose to fame when she was in her mid-30s, and today, she’s in her 50s, still going strong playing Meredith Grey. The character had multiple pregnancy storylines throughout the many seasons, and in real life, she has three kids of her own. During Season 6, she carried her first child by having Pompeo’s character donate part of her liver to her father and then going on bed rest. She has praised her boss, Shonda Rhimes, for being supportive through the process.
Claire Danes
While shooting the 2018 finale season of “Homeland,” Claire Danes was pregnant with her second child. She kept working and hid the pregnancy from the cast and crew, but as the stages of pregnancy went on, she admitted that she kept accidentally falling asleep. When she was in her last trimester with her first child in 2012, she filmed one of the most intense scenes of the show, where she was kidnapped, chained to a pipe, and filmed at 4 am while seven months pregnant. She also had to film sex scenes while pregnant!
Sarah Jessica Parker
Season 5 of “Sex and the City” was the shortest of the series. The reason? Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant with her first of three kids with husband Matthew Broderick. The writers didn’t include her pregnancy in the show. Instead, they hid her shape with Birkin bags and baggy outfits, and shortened the season so she could take maternity leave. As a result, the following and final season was packed with a record-breaking 20 episodes.
Zooey Deschanel
The star of “New Girl” was pregnant with her first child, Elsie Otter, during the fourth season of the show in 2015. She hid the pregnancy from co-stars using unique costuming. In one episode, she and her roommates pitched a suit made from sweatpants materials, which let her hide her baby bump. To accommodate her pregnancy, the show began producing Season 5 as soon as Season 4 wrapped, hiding her belly with clothing, well-placed objects, and a jury-duty storyline.