Right: the award-winning actress
with her “miracle” daughter,
Clementine, in 2012. Far right:
Griffiths with her painter
MAARTEN DE BOER/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES; LISA SAAD; GETTY IMAGEShusband Andrew Taylor.
marieclaire.com.au 101JF: Are women hard on each other?
RG: We can be. I remember recently I was
trawling for some reason on the Daily
Mail website and there was this com-
ment about Nicole Kidman as a “starlet”.
I was so angry. It was so debasing of her
achievement. And I can just remember
thinking about that journalist ... you
should be ashamed of yourself. This
woman writing about one of the great
actresses of the past 50 years. And
there’s no male equivalent of that, is
there? They wouldn’t be calling [Chris]
Hemsworth a “star boy” ... I find it so
offensive. But I think men don’t take
very beautiful women seriously, for sure.Family time
JF: You’ve got three children – Banjo,
Adelaide and Clementine. Your youngest,
Clementine, is your “miracle baby”.
You had a difficult birth ...
RG: I think we both could have died, actu-
ally. She was born in 2009, and I had a
spontaneous uterine rupture as I was
delivering. Everything was
great, I’d seen my obstetrician
the day before. He was this fab-
ulous OB – he even does the
Kardashians – and he didn’t
think anything was happening
for a week or two. And then thatnight I went into labour.
I knew it was going to be
quick because Adelaide
[my second child] had
been an hour and a half – and that’s
from ooh to hello, the whole thing.
Andrew [my husband] had jumped
in the shower and I said, “No, I think we
should go.” When we got to the hospital,
I was already almost crowning and we
went straight into the delivery room.
Then I just had this insane amount of
pain and suddenly I couldn’t push.
Finally, we got her out and she
wasn’t breathing. I remember it in slow
motion, like the team kind of running
over and pushing this huge red button
[for emergency help], all the sirens
going. Then I just crashed and it was
clear I was bleeding. I was in surgery for
24 hours, but when I came out and my
husband was there I just thought
everything was going to be all right. I
sent Andrew off to get my favourite
meal. I hadn’t met Clementine, but
everybody had told me she was OK.So Andy is five blocks away, waiting
for my veal in white wine and potatoes. I
had a doctor standing there and we were
chatting and then I looked down and I
saw my stomach go up and I said to the
doctor, “I’m bleeding again, aren’t I?”
She was watching my blood pressure
and she said, “Yeah, we’re going to have
to take you back” and then I just remem-
ber all the alarms going. I was like, “Oh
god, this is serious now.”
So I call Andy on the doctor’s phone
and say, “I love you and I’m going back
in” and he just drops the veal and runs
back to the hospital. Then I was in con-
tinuous surgery for 48 hours.
JF: Oh my god!
RG: It was nine days later that I met Clem-
entine. My best friend, Kate, somehow
got the matron from intensive care to
smuggle her through the laundry tunnels
to see me. I’d kind of hit that wall and
gone, “What happened?
What happened?” And
Kate had said, “She has
to see her baby. It’s got to
happen today. She can’t
get better until she
knows what it was for.”
And then Clementine
comes in on, like, this
tray. It was worth it.
JF: Do you believe that
things happen for a
reason?want more? Visit the
@S4: 2 =marie claire YouTube
channel at youtube.com/user/
marieclaireau to watch Jackie’s
:?E6CG:6HH:E9( 2496 = C:SE 9 DSTAR POWER
Clockwise from
far left: red carpet
ready; alongside
Toni Collette in
Muriel’s Wedding
in 1994; Golden
Globe winners
Sarah Jessica
Parker and
Griffiths in 2002;
as Sarah Walker
in the hit US
sitcom Brothers
& Sisters.