Thandie Newton Told Her Kids "Daddy Has a Beautiful Penis" During a Sex Talk

Updated on 1/28/2017 at 3:00 AM

Thandie Newton has been making waves with her role on HBO's Westworld, and she doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. Ahead of the SAG Awards on Jan. 29, where she is nominated for outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series, the English star and outspoken activist got brutally honest about sex, love, and race in Net-a-Porter's weekly digital magazine, The Edit. Not only does she talk about being a spokesperson for other women, but the mother of three also discusses the candid "sex talk" she had with her children, Ripley, 16, Nico, 12, and Booker, 2. See her most interesting quotes ahead.

On her own new word, "femishame": "Do you know what we need? A word, like misogyny, but for women who despise other women: Femishame?"
On being the only "brown" kid in school: "I was the kid who was complicated to be friends with, because I was brown. But I'm quite glad of that now. I realized how useful being alone is for figuring out your relationship to life. For me especially. I'm challenged all the time: being a woman who doesn't want to communicate sexually as a way of making people comfortable; being a woman in a tough industry; being a spokesperson for voiceless women; being African, but also being English. There are so many things I need to speak for."
On speaking up for other women: "It's who I am, so I may as well have a little root around. And I'm a mother; I want to figure this stuff out for my children too."

On having the sex talk with her kids: "I said, 'Daddy has a beautiful penis, which enters Mama, and these two precious parts of us join together . . .' A few days later, Ripley came home from school, saying, 'Mummy, I had to tell Don he was wrong today. Don said sex is when a man makes his willy go really hard and then beats the woman with it' . . . Lucky I got to her first."
On telling her kids she was sexually abused: "I told them that the first time I ever had any sexual encounter, it was abuse. Eventually, my 12-year-old stopped me and said, 'Mum, don't worry. I am way cooler than you were at my age.'"
On Hollywood's evolvement: "I am so grateful for work [that isn't] yet another underwritten role, written for a woman by a man . . . I'm so grateful to finally be a three-dimensional character."