Sophie Turner’s ‘Tomb Raider' Prep Raises Questions About Moms 'Pushing Through' Potential Health Problems
Sophie Turner’s intense preparation for her new role is highlighting a truth many moms know well: we push through pain and health issues to get the job done. The 29-year-old actress has been training up to eight hours a day, five days a week for nearly a year to play Lara Croft in Tomb Raider — a schedule so demanding it revealed a “perpetual back problem” she didn’t know she had. Turner admitted the physical demands “have been a lot,” but she kept going.
On The Julia Cunningham Show, Turner also said it took her “months and months and months” to finally get into shape. In the process, she uncovered a chronic issue that had been simmering under the surface — a relatable reminder of how easy it is to write off aches, fatigue, or pain as “just part of it,” until it’s not.
Beyond the training, Turner is also mom to two young daughters, Willa, 5, and Delphine, 3, and she’s been candid about the emotional squeeze of parenting and work: “The mum guilt is there forever.” She told Net-a-Porter that she works all week and spends weekends entirely with her kids — and that even a lunch with a friend can make her “run back home” because her “heart is sinking” for leaving. She added she hasn’t seen friends or gone on a date in months because she “only [has] the capacity for work and family right now.” That drive to be everything to everyone can be familiar to millennial moms, but it also raises a real question: what gets sacrificed when you’re always the one holding it down?
Actress Selma Blair has described a similar pattern: she said early multiple sclerosis symptoms were brushed off as “normal” postpartum changes after she had her son, which delayed her diagnosis while she tried to keep up with caring for a baby. A 2024 study from USC’s Public Exchange and Center for the Changing Family found moms handle most household responsibilities — both the doing and the behind-the-scenes planning — across 28 of 30 common tasks, with home maintenance and taking out the trash among the only areas where dads do more. It’s a useful backdrop for why so many moms keep moving even when something feels off and moms feel invisible: too often, daily life is still built around moms being the default.
The fallout can be serious. Chronic stress and ignored aches can snowball into bigger health problems, and mothers carrying more “mental load” report higher stress, more burnout, and worse physical health. Turner has even said that after going through a lot in her 20s, she’s proven to herself, “I can survive a lot” — a mindset many moms recognize.
But “surviving a lot” isn’t the same thing as being okay. Turner’s Tomb Raider prep is a reminder that listening to your body matters, especially when the pressure to push through is constant. Ignoring persistent pain or exhaustion can turn manageable issues into chronic ones — and taking care of yourself isn’t extra. It’s part of taking care of everyone who relies on you.
More on moms and their invisible workload (and how to manage it):
Before you go, click here to see all the celebrities who have opened up about their depression and anxiety.