The actress named “The Sexiest Woman in the World” will be keeping her clothes on and choosing her parts much more carefully now
Megan Fox has some bad news for the millions of men who can’t wait for her next sexy photo shoot or raunchy movie role.
The actress named “The Sexiest Woman in the World” will be keeping her clothes on and choosing her parts much more carefully now that she has become a mother.
Megan, who is married to actor Brian Austin Green, gave birth to baby Noah in September.
In her first interview as a mum, she says: “It changes your perspective about being overly sexual in a film when you have a baby.
“I’m going to be more cautious about choosing films because I’m already thinking about when he’s in school and his friends are going to be showing him my photo shoots with me in a bikini and he’s going to be horrified.
“So that will deter me from making some of the choices I made before.”
Megan gave her son the biblical name of Noah because she has returned to the religious beliefs that were instilled in her as a child in rural Tennessee, where she was born.
“I went through a stage in my early 20s when I was very rebellious against how I was raised and I wasn’t worried about faith or religion but now, maybe because of getting married and wanting to have a family, I’ve come back full circle,” she says.
We are talking in a hotel not far from her hilltop Los Angeles home and Megan, 26, is looking gorgeous.
No one would guess she recently had a baby.
“I only gained 23 pounds when I was pregnant and I’m still 10 pounds heavier than I was but I don’t want to kill myself trying to get back into shape because it’s not a priority right now,” she says.
“I’m too in love with Noah and I don’t want to be away from him. I don’t want to be at the gym, I just want to be home.”
Initially she tried to care for the baby without any help but she has now hired a night nurse for two nights a week.
“Having an infant is difficult,” she says. “It’s a lot of work and I didn’t hire any help because I overestimated my own abilities. I had no idea how difficult babies could be, so Brian and I were exhausted.
“You never sleep and you’re awake all night and your entire life is devoted to this little thing that needs you constantly.
“And I love it. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl. I always wanted to mother things and I constantly had a doll I was taking care of. I don’t receive the same satisfaction from my career as I do from being a mother so I’m really happy.
“But two weeks ago I said to Brian, ‘We have to get a night nurse or we’re going to get a divorce because somebody’s got to sleep in this house or we’re going to kill each other’.”
Having a baby has made Megan acutely aware of time passing.
“It’s scary because unfortunately women in the film industry don’t seem to hold their value as they get older so it’s scary for all of us,” she says.
“I relate it to being like a basketball player who is only 33 or 34 but people say he is geriatric because you top-out young. It’s the same thing for actresses. I’m 26 but already time is a tickin’.
“I’ve only got a few years left being so good but I’m thankful for having the marriage that I have and having a best friend and partner because that makes me feel safe and comforted in knowing that he’s going to grow old with me and love me no matter what and value me no matter how old I get.”
In the past Megan has been outspoken about being bisexual and having had an affair with a stripper while in her teens.
But she has been in a monogamous relationship with actor Brian Austin Green – 13 years her senior – since she was 18.
She briefly broke up with the star of TV’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles in 2009 but reconciled the next year and married in Hawaii in 2010. Since Noah was born, she says, Brian has been doing the cooking and waiting on her.
“My husband is amazing. He does the majority of the work and he’s been really good because I’ve been so tired.
“He does more work than I do and he’s just a champ. He’s very maternal and he loves taking care of kids so I really lucked out.
“He’s so helpful and nurturing and amazing… he’s my soulmate. But I kind of want to start cooking now.
“It makes me feel more domestic and I’m sure once the baby is old enough to eat I’m going to want to prepare things for him and dote on him and be a smother mother.”
“I’ve definitely said some things that I shouldn’t say,” she admits.
“There’s a misconception that maybe I’m overly confident or a little vapid or that I am a stereotypical, bratty, spoiled girl who doesn’t have much to bring to the table other than how people perceive her physically.
“But I don’t have the energy to try and fight to prove to people that I’m not an airhead.”
Megan was a successful model before landing a regular stint in TV’s Hope and Faith.
She made her movie debut in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen but it was Steven Spielberg-produced 2007 blockbuster Transformers which shot her to stardom.
But she refuses to take herself, the adulation or the movies with any degree of seriousness and laughs at the “world’s sexiest woman” label.
“I don’t take any notice of those polls or whatever they are,” she says.
“I take it with a grain of salt. I think that because I was in a movie that made $800million they threw me on the top of the list.”
She is currently co-starring in the raunchy Judd Apatow comedy This Is 40, playing a shop assistant who earns her money as a call girl on the side.
“I have a lot more fun making comedies because there’s a levity on the set and I find it difficult to go to work and, you know, cry for 12 hours,” she says.
“I respect the people who do it and can do it well but I would prefer to go to work and laugh so I’d like to just do comedies now.”
She will also make sure her future movies are filmed near home in LA: “I’ve always been hesitant to take movies out of town because I’m such a homebody but now it’s not really an option.”
She is also determined success will have no effect on her life.
“Hollywood is a really dark and dangerous place if you let it be and I feel that what saves me from that is that I get no validation from work and no validation from fame,” she says.
“If anything, I’ve always found it really overwhelming and kind of frightening and claustrophobic.
“The people who need it to feel good are the ones that become addicted to it and spiral out of control.
“It hasn’t happened to me and hopefully it never will.”
They already care for Brian’s 10-year-old son Kash from a previous relationship who, says Megan, is not overly excited by the new arrival.
“Kash is a little indifferent,” she says. “He’s not experiencing any sort of jealousy or competitiveness but he’s not excited because he just wants to go play video games.”
Becoming a mother has caused Megan to think deeply about the future.
“It’s made me finally have a sense of my own mortality because I realise there’s not enough time in the world for me to have with Noah. You realise how quickly time moves.
“He’s only eight weeks old but I don’t want him to grow too fast and when he was only five days old I was crying because he was growing so fast.”
“Mega” Fox, as her fans call her, is one of the most interesting and contradictory actresses in Hollywood.
Depending on who you talk to, she is a delightful presence on a movie set, a nightmare to work with, “dumb as a rock” or a clever and insightful young actress.
She is also jaw-droppingly frank and outspoken, frequently saying things that get her into trouble.
Her comment to a magazine that Michael Bay, who directed her in the two Transformers movies, is “like Hitler” on his sets prompted an angry response from three crew members who accused her of being frequently late and “a thankless, classless, graceless, unfriendly bitch”.
Megan shrugs off criticism, but you can’t help feeling behind the exterior is a sensitive soul and possibly it hurts her.
“I’ve definitely said some things that I shouldn’t say,” she admits.
“There’s a misconception that maybe I’m overly confident or a little vapid or that I am a stereotypical, bratty, spoiled girl who doesn’t have much to bring to the table other than how people perceive her physically.
“But I don’t have the energy to try and fight to prove to people that I’m not an airhead.”
Megan was a successful model before landing a regular stint in TV’s Hope and Faith.
She made her movie debut in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen but it was Steven Spielberg-produced 2007 blockbuster Transformers which shot her to stardom.
But she refuses to take herself, the adulation or the movies with any degree of seriousness and laughs at the “world’s sexiest woman” label.
“I don’t take any notice of those polls or whatever they are,” she says.
“I take it with a grain of salt. I think that because I was in a movie that made $800million they threw me on the top of the list.”
She is currently co-starring in the raunchy Judd Apatow comedy This Is 40, playing a shop assistant who earns her money as a call girl on the side.
“I have a lot more fun making comedies because there’s a levity on the set and I find it difficult to go to work and, you know, cry for 12 hours,” she says.
“I respect the people who do it and can do it well but I would prefer to go to work and laugh so I’d like to just do comedies now.”
She will also make sure her future movies are filmed near home in LA: “I’ve always been hesitant to take movies out of town because I’m such a homebody but now it’s not really an option.”
She is also determined success will have no effect on her life.
“Hollywood is a really dark and dangerous place if you let it be and I feel that what saves me from that is that I get no validation from work and no validation from fame,” she says.
“If anything, I’ve always found it really overwhelming and kind of frightening and claustrophobic.
“The people who need it to feel good are the ones that become addicted to it and spiral out of control.
“It hasn’t happened to me and hopefully it never will.”