Celebs You Didn't Know Were Pregnant While Filming

Few things in nature capture the imagination like the emergence of new life, but for the mothers who carry and give birth to children, it exacts a heavy toll, physically and emotionally. Difficult in the best of times, pregnancy poses additional challenges when women must balance their medical and nutritional needs — and those of their unborn children — with the demands of their jobs. There's an added dimension, too, for women in entertainment.

In an industry where image is everything, and physicality is baked into the process, the women who act and perform while pregnant must be camera-ready at all times, bodies in transformation and all. Still, some of show business' biggest stars have managed to keep working without the audience catching on to their situations. And others have taken things a step further, successfully hiding pregnancies from their on-set co-workers.

From Ellen Pompeo's pregnancy being spun by writers into an organ donation storyline on a show to Bryce Dallas Howard doing stunts while totally unaware of her own pregnancy, here are the celebs you didn't know were pregnant while filming.

In June 2004, Courteney Cox gave birth to her only child with then-husband David Arquette — a daughter named Coco. Coco Arquette's birth came just one month after another major milestone in Cox's life; namely, the May 2004 airing of the "Friends" series finale. As such, the actress — who played Monica Gellar on the show — was actually pregnant during production of the iconic NBC sitcom's last season. 

Nevertheless, producers opted not to incorporate Cox's real-life pregnancy into Monica's final storylines, despite her family arc with Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) after getting married in Season 7. That's because the show had already established that the fictional couple would not be able to have children of their own, pushing them to pursue adoption instead. Consequently, the series had to shoot around Cox's baby bump, using creative angles and keeping the camera from lingering on her too long in scenes. The situation had an added layer of difficulty for Cox personally, as she had experienced multiple miscarriages before finally welcoming Coco.

While promoting Season 2 of her Facebook Watch series, "9 Months with Courteney Cox," in 2020, the "Friends" star gave an interview to her daughter about the hidden (from viewers, at least) pregnancy, describing the experience as "Exciting, emotional, great."

Courteney Cox wasn't the only "Friends" star to endure the rigors of filming while simultaneously carrying their first — and only — child. The same could be said for Lisa Kudrow, who famously played the most out-there friend, Phoebe Buffay. Longtime fans may recall that during Seasons 4 and 5 of the show, Phoebe served as a surrogate for her newly discovered half-brother, Frank Buffay, Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi), who marries his much-older former home economics teacher, Alice Knight (Debra Jo Rupp).

While Phoebe was carrying what turned out to be Frank and Alice's triplets on the show, Kudrow herself was pregnant with her son, Julian, whom she shares with her longtime husband, Michel Stern. So, in a sense, her actual pregnancy was hidden in plain sight as she portrayed her character's pregnancy on the screen. Said Kudrow of the support she received from her co-stars during that time in an interview with People: "The six of us would do a huddle backstage and just say, 'All right, have a good show, love you, love you, love you, love you' ... And when I was pregnant, then they would say, 'Have a great show, love you, love you — love you, little Julian!' 'Cause we knew it was a boy and that was his name." 

Added Kudrow: "So sweet, they included my little fetus in the huddle." Kudrow and Stern welcomed Julian in May 1998.

Managing the physical demands and medical issues that arise with pregnancy can be difficult in the best of circumstances. However, action stars face the additional challenge of reconciling those issues with the physical demands imposed by their roles, which can be incongruent with maintaining a safe and stable pregnancy. That was exactly the scenario that "Wonder Woman" star Gal Gadot was forced to navigate while production on her first solo sojourn into the DC Extended Universe was underway. 

The Israeli actress was pregnant with Maya, her second of four daughters with Jaron Varsano, at the time. Not only that — she actually made the decision to hide her condition during filming as to avoid preferential treatment on the set. "I gutted it out. I started to come to set with sunglasses," Gadot told Marie Claire in a June 2017 cover story (via Glamour). "I had this jug of water with huge pieces of ginger. One of the producers kept on asking, 'Why are you drinking that potato water?' They thought I'd gone Hollywood."

While she seemingly had success in hiding her pregnancy during principal photography, the same couldn't be said for reshoots. As reported by The Independent, Gadot — who was then five months pregnant — was fitted with a green screen cloth over her belly, which was then made to appear flat in post-production. Maya was born March 2017, two months before "Wonder Woman's" Hollywood premiere.

Like Gal Gadot in the DCEU, Scarlett Johansson was a key cog in the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe during the 2010s, appearing in several films of the fan-favorite franchise as ex-assassin Natasha Romanov, a.k.a. Black Widow. And also like Gadot, Johansson didn't put her off-camera life on hold while bringing her character to life on the screen. Rather, she set about starting a family with her then-husband Romain Dauriac, whom she was with before her marriage to Colin Jost.

As a result, she completed work on 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron," while carrying her daughter Rose Dorothy, who was born in 2014. While film audiences may have been wholly unaware of Johansson's condition while filming due to her larger-than-life aura in the finished product, her castmates were well aware of the pregnancy during the shoot. "I've never met a woman more happy pregnant than Scarlett," said her "Avengers" co-star Chris Evans about her work on the film (via ABC News' "Nightline"). "On the last day of shooting, she could barely put a sentence together, but she timed it perfectly."

While Evans was complimentary during the 2015 interview, Johansson herself admitted that she relied heavily on her stand-ins during production. "I did as much as I could do and filled in all the blanks later on," she told E! News. "I have a really amazing, amazing stunt team around me. My stunt double, Heidi Moneymaker — and that's her real name — is really incredible, and this time took a lot of the punches for me, literally."

Kerry Washington's acting career has seen her tackle roles ranging from Broomhilda von Shaft in 2012's "Django Unchained" to Alicia Masters in the "Fantastic Four" films of the mid-2000s. However, she's perhaps best-known for playing Olivia Pope in the long-running ABC political thriller series "Scandal," a role that netted her multiple Primetime Emmy nominations. Along the way, though, she and the show's production team were forced to contend with not one but two pregnancies.

When she was pregnant with her first child with former football star Nnamdi Asomugha — daughter Isabelle Amarachi – during Season 3, the production elected to hide her condition by blocking her belly from the camera's view. For Washington, though, the greater challenge was actually navigating her craft amid her metamorphosis. "The biggest thing for me has been the challenge of how to be this person [Olivia Pope] with the personal transformation that's going on for me physically and how to stay true to this character," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "That hasn't been easy. It's been an awesome challenge for me as an actor because so much of how I access character is through my body."

Although the production employed many of the same tricks when she was pregnant with her son, Caleb Kelechi, during Season 6, the show was also shifted to the mid-season schedule to accommodate its star.

While the annals of television lore are flush with memorable series and iconic characters, precious few have enjoyed the longevity of success of Ellen Pompeo's Meredith Grey from the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy." Pompeo was in her mid-30s when the show first aired on ABC in March 2005; more than two decades later, she's in her 50s and continuing to tell new stories (albeit in a reduced capacity in recent seasons) through the character.

Over the years, Grey has been through multiple storyline pregnancies. In the meantime, Pompeo has had three children of her own with her husband, music producer Chris Ivery — daughters Stella Luna and Sienna May, and son Eli Christopher. However, when she was carrying her first child, Stella, during Season 6 of "Grey's Anatomy," the show's writers opted not to put Meredith in a similar circumstance. Instead, they worked around Pompeo's pregnancy by having her character donate part of her liver to her father, after which she was put on bed rest.

Pompeo ultimately welcomed her daughter in September 2009. The actress later credited the show's creator, Shonda Rhimes, with helping her strike a balance between serving the show and being a mother. "Her best quality as a boss? That's so easy," Pompeo said during a 2025 appearance on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast. "When you tell her you're pregnant ... she literally sounds the bell, the confetti comes down. 'How many days do you need off? What can we do for you? How do we make this easier for you?'"

These days, Hayley Atwell is perhaps best known for her work in the MCU as Peggy Carter, a British agent who co-founds S.H.I.E.L.D., and the star-crossed love interest of Chris Evans' Captain America/Steve Rogers. Since achieving a new level of popularity in comic book movies, though, she has parlayed that success into prominent parts in other franchise films. Namely, a pair of "Mission: Impossible" movies, in which Atwell starred alongside Tom Cruise.

While finishing her work on 2025's "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning," Atwell was about as pregnant as a woman can be; literally weeks from giving birth. As shared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," she was more than eight months pregnant when reshoots were underway. Despite being in a critical stretch of the pregnancy, Atwell somehow managed to shoot some of her most physical scenes. "Everyone was so supportive and they were like, 'Oh, you can sit down, and we'll have a stunt double do it,'" she told Fallon of a fight scene in the film. "And I was like, 'No! I've worked too hard. Let me do it.' So I did it."

Atwell welcomed her first child with her husband, musician Ned Wolfgang Kelly, in 2024.

Helena Bonham Carter has made a career out of portraying dark, quirky characters, from Bellatrix Lestrange in the "Harry Potter" franchise and the Red Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" to "Fight Club's" Marla Singer, and more. So, when she got into a relationship with Hollywood's king of offbeat cinema, director Tim Burton, in 2001, it felt like a match made in drive-in movie heaven. In the end, the pairing didn't last — Burton and Carter split in 2014 — however, their partnership nonetheless produced two children, one of whom she was carrying while work was underway on a Burton classic.

A frequent collaborator of her then-husband, Carter played Mrs. Lovett in Burton's adaptation of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," which was released theatrically in 2007. At the time, Carter was carrying the couple's second child, Nell, who was born later that year. And while Carter's pregnancy didn't affect how the character was portrayed on screen, sharper-eyed moviegoers may have noticed a continuity issue that was directly caused by her physical metamorphosis while carrying her second child. 

"Anyone who ... pays attention to my breast size will see there's no continuity," she said to Playboy at the time, as relayed by The New York Post. "The first half of filming I wasn't pregnant, and the second half I was, and because we didn't shoot it in order, I start off with huge breasts and then I walk upstairs and suddenly I've got tangerines again. It's melons to tangerines."

When Bryce Dallas Howard played Gwen Stacy in 2007's "Spider-Man 3," she wasn't the Hollywood power player she is now. Sure, she was still the daughter of Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, but outside of her earlier roles in "The Village" and "Lady in the Water," her CV wasn't exactly overstuffed with starring roles and acclaimed performances. Still, fans from Spidey's comic book heyday had eyes on the actress, as she was playing one of the most important and iconic characters in the superhero's history.

Despite the scrutiny, fans missed the fact that Bryce was actually pregnant while shooting the film. However, they can hardly be blamed for it — Bryce didn't even know she was pregnant at the time. So, she happily performed many of her own stunts, wholly unaware of the risk she was taking by doing so. "I was pregnant at the time, but I had no idea," Bryce told Vulture at the movie's premiere. "When I found out, I was like, 'Oh, Lord!' I was honestly praying the whole time."

The prayers were warranted, too. Bryce's famous dad previously told the outlet that his daughter was injured while performing one of those stunts, when a desk crashed into her during a scene that saw her hanging off a high-rise building. "She has to not let her eagerness and her sense of professionalism take over," Ron said of her mindset at the time. "I basically told her, 'Don't be afraid to speak up.' But she was so thrilled to be in the 'Spider-Man' movie I'm not sure she was listening."

For her part, Claire Danes was fully aware that she was expecting her second child with fellow actor and husband Hugh Dancy while shooting the last season of her Showtime series "Homeland" in 2018. Regardless, she opted to continue working on the show, going so far as to hide the pregnancy from the show's cast and crew. That said, there were obvious impacts during the earlier, more difficult stages of the pregnancy.

"I was filming quite a lot but just inadvertently falling asleep all the time. And it was embarrassing," Danes confessed during an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" (via People). On one particular occasion, she even face-planted onto a crochet bag between takes, leaving a mark on her face. "It was time for my close up ... and I sit up and I have this crocheted indentation on the side of my face. It looked like I had third-degree burns."

This wasn't the first time Danes pushed herself during her pregnancy. Mere weeks before giving birth to her and Dancy's first child in 2012, she reportedly filmed some of the 2nd Season's most intense scenes. "I was kidnapped, I was chained to a pipe, it was 4 a.m., I was seven and a half months pregnant, and I was like, 'This sucks,'" Danes said during a panel hosted by The Hollywood Reporter. "I had to do love scenes pregnant. That was really unpleasant."

Season 5 of HBO's hit series "Sex and the City," which aired in 2002, ended up being the shortest of the series' six-year run in terms of the number of episodes that were produced. That's because its star, Sarah Jessica Parker, was pregnant with her first of three children with her husband, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" star Matthew Broderick — a son named James Wilkie – at the time.

With the romantic life of Parker's Carrie Bradshaw at the heart of the show's narrative and children not yet in the cards for the character, the "Sex and the City" writers opted not to include the actor's pregnancy in the show. Instead, her changing body was masked with baggy clothes, Birkin bags, and the like, and the season was shortened to allow Parker to take maternity leave. As a result, producers packed a series-high 20 episodes into the sixth and final season to make up the difference.

As it happened, Parker's co-star, Cynthia Nixon, was also pregnant around the same time. However, her pregnancy was actually written into the show. Parker ultimately welcomed her son in October 2002.

"New Girl" star Zooey Deschanel announced the impending arrival of her first child – a daughter named Elsie Otter — with her then-husband, producer Jacob Pechenik, in 2015. While it was a joyous event for the actress, her pregnancy coincided with production on the show's fourth season. However, she was able to hide her condition from her co-stars for a time with the help of some unique costuming. 

During the Season 4 episode "Swuit," Deschanel's Jess helps her roommates pitch a new product — the titular suit, which was made entirely of sweatsuit material — to Lori Greiner in hopes of bringing it to the masses. The billowy nature of the garment allowed Deschanel to mask her emerging baby bump at the time. "I'm the only one who wears it in the episode," she later told People. "It was really comfortable, and I was pregnant at the time, but I couldn't tell anybody, so I was happy to be wearing comfortable clothes."

In order to accommodate her continuing pregnancy, production on Season 5 of "New Girl" began immediately after Season 4 wrapped. Deschanel's belly remained hidden from viewers thanks to strategically-placed objects, baggy clothes, and a jury duty storyline.