Liv Tyler: Looking Back With No Regrets

Although Liv Tyler became really famous as a half-elf in “The Lord of the Rings” movies, her life has been anything but a fantasy. Over the last few years, she’s been finding a balance between being a mother to her three-year-old son Milo and having a career. This year, Tyler has two high-profile films: the horror flick “The Strangers” and the superhero blockbuster “The Incredible Hulk.” Tyler (who turns 31 this year) recently announced that she was separating from musician Royston Langdon, her husband since 2003. Although she’s declined to talk to the media about the separation, Tyler did talk to myLifetime.com about motherhood and how she’s been dealing with some of her current challenges.

Can you talk about the time that you’ve taken off between movies?

I didn’t work for two years. My son was born, and I really had a beautiful bonding experience with my son and family. And when I went back to work … I made three movies in a row. I finished “The Incredible Hulk” in [2007] and I haven’t worked since then. I’ve had all this time off. I was a little bit burned out, physically and emotionally, from the experience of ‘The Strangers” and “The Incredible Hulk,” so I just needed to recharge my batteries. And I feel better.

As a mother, how would you describe how you balance your work and family life?

I had a month with my family where I didn’t have a nanny, and I was in Hawaii, and I spent every moment with my son for the past few months. Right now, I’m excited to work. That’s the thing about this job that I feel really blessed about. I can work really hard for a couple of months and then I can be a real, normal mom for a couple of months.

You have to deal with paparazzi following you around and other intrusions in your personal life. Is being a famous actress worth that kind of attention, and would you do anything differently?

Life’s not perfect. Things happen, and you deal with it. Part of being an actor in this world, which is so media-based, is paparazzi are always following me. We don’t like that part of the job; we like acting, and that’s why we do what we do. When you’re acting in a movie, it’s so magical. It’s such a collaboration. It’s not isolating and not just about you … I feel very blessed to do what I do for a living and I hope I will always get to.

“The Strangers” is the first horror film that you’ve done. What surprised you the most about doing this movie?

Everything about it surprised me … When I read the script, I just really fell in love with it … I was on an airplane back from Japan, and I had a stack of scripts and I saw “The Strangers.” I didn’t even know what it was about, but I was so riveted that I couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t a straight-up horror movie, which is why I loved it. The relationship between the couple [in the movie played by me and Scott Speedman], even in the first 20 pages, [had] more dimension and more material than you get in three other “normal” movies. It absolutely scared the pants off me … At the heart of it, it’s a dramatic story but it happens to be scary.

What scares you in real life?

I grew up in Maine in my aunt’s big house, and I was always scared of the dark and scared of what was under my bed. Still, to this day, when I go into a hotel room — I don’t know why — I always look under the bed and I’m nervous to [have] my feet touch down on the ground.