VIDEO: Reese Witherspoon: When I Realized I Was Becoming Like My Mother

The This Means War star dishes on parenting and why she decided to embrace her inner sexy action hero

As much as they try to avoid it, most women find a moment after they have kids when they realize they just might be turning into their mom. And for Reese Witherspoon, it was no different.

“It’s usually something while you’re parenting,” the star of This Means War (in theaters Feb. 17) tells iVillage exclusively. “A phrase slips out like, ‘Because I said so.’ And then you go, ‘Oh, that sounds like my mother.'”

The 35-year-old mom of two (she has Ava, 12, and Deacon, 8, from her marriage to Ryan Phillippe) also admits that she’s still struggling to find a balance between career and motherhood — even now that her kids are getting older. “At every age it’s a different set of difficulties. Certain things get easier, certain things get harder.”

Watch our exclusive video interview with the actress and her sexy costars, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy, to find out the one thing Witherspoon’s new hubby, Jim Toth, did not do to woo her — and to hear why Pine says his favorite chick flick is Lady and the Tramp.