Hilary Swank Says She’s Game For Any Motherhood Challenges: ‘This Is What I Wanted!’

The actress shares her twins Aya and Ohma with her husband Philip Schneider

Hilary Swank opens up about her journey to motherhood.

While appearing on Today with Hoda and Jennaactress, 49, spoke with co-hosts Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb about her twins, daughter Aya and son Ohm, whom she welcomed in April 2023 with husband Philip Schneider.

“Can we just talk about something you’ve been waiting your whole life to finally happen? Have you always wanted to be a mom?” Kotb asks Swank.

“I did. I mean, I always, even when I was a little girl, I thought ‘I want to be a mom one day,'” the proud mom recalls. “But I also have this career that was like a baby to me that I wanted to do my best. And then find the right partner and all that.”

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Hilary Swank in February.

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Hilary Swank Admits ‘Sleepless Nights Are Hard’ With Twins, But Will Look Back On Them With Love (Exclusive)

Kotb then asks Swank about welcoming her twins a little later in life, calling it a “blessing.”

“Absolutely it is. I don’t know, because we didn’t have them younger so I don’t know what it would have been like back then, but I think there’s still something for me now that I can focus on them in a way that I couldn’t at that time,” explains Swank. .

“I can do my best for them because I’m in the blessed position of being able to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to go back to work now.’ Or, ‘Now I’m going to take this time off.’ Well, we also had an actors’ strike, so I was with them the whole first year,” she continues.

“There are all these expectations – it’s so funny, parenting has these clichés, some of which are true. And some of which are like, ‘You’ll never sleep again!’ ” adds Bush Hager.

“Yeah, a lot of complaining. ‘Oh my God, your life’s kind of taken away. It’s been hijacked until they get back to school.’ I said, ‘This is what I wanted. Good. Take the hell out of it!’ Swank says with a laugh.

Last month, Swank reflected on the ups and downs of raising twins when she attended the premiere of her film Ordinary angels at the SVA Theater in New York.

Admitting that nights can be “difficult” with twins, Swank shared that there will come a time when she looks back on this period from a different perspective.

“I mean, being a mother of twins, I’ve never been single, so I don’t know what it’s like,” she explained to PEOPLE. “But I know sleepless nights are hard and when you have one, it might make it through the night, the other one doesn’t, so it’s kind of a compromise every night.”

“But I know that this is also a season, and that it too will pass, and I try to remind myself that there will come a day when I say, ‘Oh, I wish I could wake up now and just wait for you.’ So I just try to stick with it.”

She also shared that she is looking forward to the next challenge in her twins’ lives.

“Well, they’re just crawling, so it’s not like we’re out of control or anything,” she told PEOPLE.

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