Katie Holmes is mother to one of the most famous and fashionable little girls in the world. There is no five year old, at least in the American non-monarchial world, quite as style-forward as Tom Cruise’s one blood heir, and, at least from the paparazzi’s perspective, the two are never apart.

In her new film, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” Holmes has to focus on building a relationship with another little girl. Playing the new wife of single father Guy Pearce, she’s forced to bond with his young daughter, played by Bailee Madison. What is at first awkward develops into a trust in the most extreme of conditions (hey, it’s a horror film directed by Guillermo del Toro), something that Holmes said having a young daughter helped her conceptualize.

“I think being a mom myself, when I read my character and I saw the journey she takes and how we see her make sacrifices for her child — I think I didn’t understand that until I became a mom,” Holmes recently told Reuters. “Just how much you love this person. You will do anything for that person, and you have strength you didn’t know that you had, which is what I like about my character. So I think that being a mom definitely gave me much more insight to this character.”

It’s a similar sentiment to what she expressed at a recent press conference to promote the film.



“I love the relationship between Kim and Sally, and I love the bonding that occurs, and it’s really about two human beings that recognize something of themselves in each other,” she told assembled press. And that shared relationship that turns into something very special and powerful and Kim has to learn not only to listened but to bring this little girl in her life, but to make her feel safe.”