Lashana Lynch has "discovered [herself] again" since becoming a mother.

The Children of Blood and Bone actress and her husband Zackary Momoh welcomed their first child into the world last year, and she's found herself taking a step back and taking life as it comes rather than attempting to shape her life into what she thought motherhood should look like.

She told Britain's Elle magazine: "[Parenthood has been] a lesson in discovering yourself again as a person. Everything I'm learning in early motherhood is now seeping into other areas in my life, because that's the most important thing in my life - and it means that everyone gets to benefit.

"When everything is constantly changing, you don't feel like you have a grasp on any given part of it for long enough to feel like an expert.

"I always played Tetris with everything in my life and that doesn't work any more. I needed to learn how to step back and stop doing the tug of war with what I thought [motherhood] should be, as opposed to what was actually presenting itself."

The 38-year-old actress has always done her own stunts and when she went back into training after having a baby, she was left "perplexed" and emotional after realising her body didn't respond in the way it used to.

She said: "Your body is not yours when you're pregnant; you're holding precious cargo, you're literally a house...

"I trained from around six months postpartum.

"At the start, I found the training I've known since my first film, all the way up until The Day of the Jackal, didn't work anymore; my body wasn't responding.

"I've known my body since I was a child doing athletics, so I was on the floor with how confusing, perplexing, and emotional it was to go through this time when I didn't know my body."

As a result, it has taken a lot of time and care to be able to "feel the power that came from a different place" with her body.

She added: "My relationship with my body has definitely been a slow rice cooker kind of journey, but it's impossible to not feel gratitude for why your body looks the way it does, before wanting to change it."

And those changes have made Lashana more willing to take risks with her wardrobe than focus on flattering fits.

She said: "My approach to fashion now is much more celebratory of my postpartum body instead of wanting to feel cool and have something fit nicely.

"I find myself wanting to take more risks - I wear more colour, patterns, structure - it's a real mixture, and I like that I haven't landed on any one style; playing with fashion feels like this real juicy spot."