Nicola Walker shares heartbreaking reason for 'putting off' marriage and having a child

Nicola Walker has revealed the heartbreaking reason why she "put off" getting married and having a family ahead of her return to screens in The Split's two-part special.

The actress, who portrays divorce lawyer Hannah Stern in the BBC's hit legal drama, revealed that she felt she would be "betraying" her late mum, who passed away aged 54 when Nicola was in her late 20s, by "doing things that she couldn't be a part of". 

"I was 29 when she died. So I had her for quite a long time actually, looking back now," she told The Times. "You meet people who have lost a parent when they were under ten. I've met some actors and I think, 'Well, at least I had her for 29 years.' And you feel like you're a grown-up by then, but when you lose your mother, you feel… Well, I just felt like a child. I felt like a baby."

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Nicola, who wed her husband, actor Barnaby Kay, in 2006 after a 20-year relationship, revealed it took her a long time to grieve the death of her mother, who passed after enduring years of progressive multiple sclerosis.

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"It took me a long time to recover from her not being there," explained the 54-year-old. "And I put things off because she wasn't there. This is getting a bit bleak. I don't mean to be morbid, but I put off having a child and the marriage thing because I'd just think, 'I'd like my mum to be here. I'm doing things and I feel she would have been here and been such a big part of it.' So I think I did. I think I put things off. I felt like I was betraying her on some level by doing things that she couldn’t be a part of."

Nicola and Barnaby first met back in the 1990s when the then-25-year-old actress was starring in a play called The Libertine. The couple decided to tie the knot after welcoming their son, Harry, in 2006. 

© Sister/BBC/Tereza Cervenova

On why she and Barnaby decided to marry after almost two decades together, Nicola told the Radio Times in 2022: "Me and my husband, because we both lost a parent young, we thought, after we had a child, we ought to get married, in case one of us dies, so that the legalities are clear. Which is not the most romantic reason to get married but is probably the only thing that would have got me to sign a piece of paper."

She added: "I'm not a great advocate of marriage in real life."