Lucy Punch compares family life to 'traveling circus'
Lucy Punch says her family lives like a “traveling circus,” moving between Los Angeles and London.
Lucy Punch describes her family life as a "traveling circus" because they are constantly moving between Los Angeles and London.
The 47-year-old actress moved stateside in 2006 because she bagged the role of Holly Ellenbogen on the CBS sitcom, The Class, and had had enough of repeatedly being cast as "posh idiots" in the UK.
But after almost 20 years, Lucy - who lives in the US with her partner, artist Konstantinos 'Dinos' Chapman, and two sons - feels detached from her life in the Californian city.
The star - who has Rex, nine, and a four-year-old son, whose name has never been publicly revealed - told The Sunday Times newspaper: "I don’t feel like I belong there at all. Los Angeles' a very transient place. I’m more comfortable feeling in-between."
Lucy, Konstantinos and their children are living in a rented home in the British capital while she films the second season of the hit BBC sitcom, Amandaland - which follows divorcee Amanda raising her teenage children, Georgie (Miley Locke) and Manus (Alexander Shaw), amid moving from Chiswick, West London, to South Harlesden, North West London.
Lucy added: "We’re a little sort of traveling circus."
Rex has enrolled in a school whilst in the UK, and Lucy said he "likes having a double life" and can "dip between schools here and back there".
The upcoming Christmas special of Amandaland introduces Aunt Joan (Jennifer Saunders) as a "ball of country-living, enthusiastic upper-class bluster", whose lavish house is cold, dusty and Wi-Fi-free.
Amanda, Georgie and Manus travel from South Harlesden to just outside Cirencester to visit Aunt Joan, and the youngsters spend the journey by being glued to their phones.
For her own children, Lucy insists her children will not have access to a smartphone until they are adults.
She said: "Most of my friends have older kids, so I’ve seen what they’re dealing with. And that’s really terrifying to me.”
Asked if she will keep them off social media until they are 14, Lucy added: "That seems so young to me. I would be like, when he’s 18 …"
Lucy is about to celebrate Christmas in the UK for the first time in years because filming of Amandaland runs through December.
The star - whose brother is flying from his home in New York to be with her family in London - said: "Before I had kids, I didn’t really celebrate Christmas.
"I would go with my brother to Costa Rica or Cuba or somewhere and have an anti-Christmas. Now, obviously, with children, we take it up a hundred notches and spend far too much money and try to make it really lovely.”
Asked if she enjoys the holidays since becoming a mom, Lucy added: "Through them I do. I really do, actually. I love it for them, and I love them doing it.
"I throw a bit of extra money at it and then hope everyone has got enough and is happy with all their bits and pieces."
