Karla Souza has accomplished a lot in her career. She famously played a law student covering up multiple murders in How To Get Away With Murder. She won two International Emmys for producing and starring in Dive (La Caída). She’s built a filmography that fluently bounces between Hollywood and Mexico. But it took a little blue engine to impress maybe the most fickle audience of all: her three kids, ages 8, 6, and 2.
Souza is the Spanish-language narrator of Thomas & Friends Railway Stories: Really Helpful Engines, a 30-minute special that kicks off a new era for the beloved franchise through refreshed character designs, three original songs, and a story about friendship, teamwork, and helping others. She’s also, as she learned after signing on, the first woman — and first Mexican woman — to narrate Thomas & Friends.
Scary Mommy caught up with the charming Souza to talk about the special, why “balance” is a myth, officially surrendering to minivan life, and more.
Scary Mommy: Your kids are 8, 6, and 2, which is prime Thomas territory. Were they Thomas fans before? Do they have a sense of what you’re doing?
Karla Souza: This is actually the first project that I'm able to watch with them, so it was very special. I was definitely chomping at the bit, wanting to be able to share something for the first time with them. They were very confused as to why I wasn't making the train sounds and why that was somebody else. There was a lot of confusion with that part of it, but I love this new chapter of being able to share these kinds of things. And it was the first thing that I did for that kind of age range.
I just find it so special to think that maybe, when they have kids, they'll be able to show old Grandma… there’s something to be said about doing projects that can live on for generations.
SM: What does it mean to you that kids can hear Thomas in Spanish, told by a Mexican narrator?
KS: I wasn't aware that this is the first time that a woman and that a Mexican woman is the narrator of Thomas and Friends. I am so honored, and I'm very excited that female voices get to guide these new generations in seeing women in these kinds of positions.
I love how Thomas and Friends has content that isn't in overdrive, as a lot of the kids' content nowadays is extremely saturated with, I don't know, stimulation is just being thrown at you. I find that this type of content is not only going to provoke imagination, but it's also going to turn on their hearts how to be a better person, how to work as a team, how to learn from mistakes in a calmer way. So it's been a great thing to watch with my 2-year-old as well as with my 6- and 8-year-old. That doesn't really get to happen as much, so I'm really grateful for that.
SM: Three kids, a career as an actor and producer, you split your time a lot between two countries. What does balance actually look like for you, or is that nonexistent?
KS: Yeah, it's not possible. I think that word is thrown around as if it were possible to have a balanced life. I mean, anyone who's near my life is like, "How do you do this?" I think the trains have systems; they're on the tracks. There are times when the train leaves. If there's a delay, there's an announcement to all the people that there's a delay. It's the same. If I didn't have all these systems and a community of people around me to support me, my husband, my family, our nanny, the school, everything, we would not be able to do this. My mom didn't work, per se, so I never saw what that would look like. So it's been a learning curve for me to understand how to juggle all of it.
There's a lot of mom guilt still there that, every therapy session, I'm trying to get to why I still feel that way. It's real, it's hard, but I will say that also the ability to see my kids watching me do something that I love, watching me impact society in a way, watching me live out my purpose, is as important as being with them 24-7.
SM: Such a good reminder that we’re not alone; we all feel like this in a way. Your youngest is 2. What difference strikes you the most about parenting your third compared to your first?
KS: My 2-year-old started saying words that were like, "Where did she hear that?" I'm like, "Obviously from us; there's no other place. This word isn't going to magically appear in her mouth. That is why she is saying that word." It's funny how you're in denial of, like, "I don't do that,” but surely we do.
I think having children is a great mirror for who you are and the work you have to do on yourself, because they call BS so quickly when we try to teach them about, like, breathwork. And yet when I get frustrated, I'm not practicing what I am trying to teach. So as much as I try to think that they aren't as perceptive, they are. They just absorb so much of how we live our lives, of what we do.
Whenever I've noticed that working on myself is actually the best way to show up for them and to model it, that's how I see it with my 2-year-old and my 8-year-old — my 2-year-old is an imitator of everything she sees from my 8-year-old. Whatever my 8-year-old wants to do, whether it's gymnastics or staying up late or reading a book, my 2-year-old goes off and does it. It just shows you how interaction and who you surround yourself with really is very important at this stage in their lives.
It’s an interesting sort of case study on life and how we are as humans and what makes us feel like we belong.
SM: Yeah, it is fascinating how it shows up like that.
But yeah, the 2-year-old obviously is the queen of the household, and my 8-year-old is as well, but the 2-year-old is coming in like a storm. She's a spitfire. So we do what she says. My 8-year-old is a great sort of... I try to not put the caretaking role on her as much because a lot of people try to have the older kids kind of become the caretakers, and I don't want to do that. But I will say she has a lovely pull towards taking care of her baby sister.
I love having that separation of years, but yeah, the 2-year-old's my last one. We just bought ourselves our first minivan, so I've given up. That's it; I'm a mom of three. I've never had a minivan in my life, and we just got one. I'm like, "All right, that's who I am now."
SM: We rented a minivan for a girls’ trip a few years ago. Five moms driving up the coast in a rented minivan; it was hilarious. But it was the first one I drove as well, and I was like, “You know what? There’s something to this. It’s super comfortable.”
KS: I know. The kids just get in and they get out, and it's just so comfortable. I feel more powerful driving it than I thought I would be. I'm like, "This is actually cooler than I thought." But yes, I've given up on the cool, sexy cars now and I'm like, "All right, I'm going to embrace it."
SM: As you should. Let's make minivans cool and sexy.
KS: Yes. Hey, you did it on a girls' trip! That's hilarious.
SM: Pivoting a bit, I saw you post that How To Get Away With Murder just marked 12 years since its premiere. Does the ending hit differently now that you’re a mom of three?
KS: Man, I am in awe of Laurel being able to be a mom at that period of her life. I'm still shocked. And I'm shocked that I, as a human being, was able to... I think I was pregnant when I did that scene on the elevator where she's having these contractions and there's a potential stillbirth. Nowadays, knowing so much more, I'm like, "I don't know how I could do that today." But I will say that at least playing to be a mom definitely prepared me in the smallest of ways, but it did prepare me to be a mom. It kind of gave me that vote of confidence because I never thought I could be a mom.
I didn't grow up with that faith of I can do it. I was like, "I still feel like I'm a child and I'm trying to parent my own child, my inner child every day." But that's why I thought I wasn't sort of made for motherhood, and look at me three kids later: here I am.
So for all the moms out there, all the women out there, who feel like they wouldn't be able to do it, I was that person. I was definitely thinking, "How can I still have a career and do what I love and travel with my friends in a minivan? How can I do all these things and still have kids?" It's possible. Does it all look the same as when I was single? No, it doesn't, but it is possible. It's tough, but that's the caveat. It's the silver lining, but yes.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
source https://www.scarymommy.com/entertainment/karla-souza-interview-thomas-friends-special
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