Julie Bowen Recalls Chaos of First Labor and Delivery

Michael N. Todaro/FilmMagic

When Julie Bowen delivered twins John and Gus earlier this year she had much to be grateful for — not the least of which was her attire! During a recent visit to The Bonnie Hunt Show, the 39-year-old Modern Family actress revealed just how far she took Method acting while filming a fictional labor and delivery on her former show Boston Legal.

Heavily pregnant with her first son Oliver McLanahan, 2 ½, Julie’s water broke on set. “I was pretending to give birth and I said, ‘I think I have a situation of water breaking,’” she recalls. “They drove me off to the hospital, wearing a fake hospital gown.”

“I said, ‘You have to take me home so I can shower, they’re going to think I’m an insane person if I show up in full makeup, wearing my own hospital gown.’ I thought that would be an awkward situation.”

Noting that she felt as though she’d spend the entire day in labor because she’d been “faking” all morning, Julie added, “real labor was worse!”

Life with Oliver and the twins, now 5 months, is going well. “I am happy,” Julie said with a smile, though with refreshing candor she clarified that on that particularly day she was “not crazy about one” of the boys. “There’s one, I’m not going to say which one, but there’s one that’s kind of bugging me right now,” she concedes. “And I can say ‘he’ and you won’t know [which one]…He needs to get in line a little.”

When host Bonnie Hunt complimented Julie on her post-baby slim-down, Julie gave credit to Spanx. “They kind of take that doughy, crêpey fabric that has become your stomach…and you can kind of fold it in,” she explains before adding,

“It’s a Julia Childs moment. Tuck it under, fold it all in.”

Oliver, John and Gus are Julie’s children with husband Scott Phillips.

Source: The Bonnie Hunt Show

– Missy