Reese Witherspoon Hopes Her Kids Know Her ‘As an Individual’: ‘You Were a Person Before You Were a Mom’

Reese Witherspoon has three kids, which seems easily manageable when compared to her Sing character Rosita’s 25. But the actress and the animated performing pig do have something big in common.

“I have three kids of my own — sometimes it feels like 25,” says Witherspoon, 40, who is mom to sons Tennessee James, 4, and Deacon Reese, 13, and daughter Ava Elizabeth, 17.

“But the idea that you were a person before you were a mom, and that sometimes you really hope that your kids know who you are as an individual,” she adds of how she relates to Rosita, a single mom with dreams of hitting the big time.

Rosita does have one thing over her real-life counterpart, though: some serious engineering prowess.

“I’m very envious of Rosita’s building and technology,” Witherspoon says with a laugh of her character’s impressive parenting skills. “She somehow builds this entire contraption that feeds all 25 children, and puts their backpacks on and says goodnight to them and reads them bedtime stories.”

“And it’s really hard to find a babysitter when you have 25 kids,” the working mom jokes.

“Singing is joyful — I think it’s an affirmation of life, and that there’s so much to celebrate in this life,” the Legally Blonde alum and Draper James founder shares.

“If one of [my kids] tells [another] one to stop singing, I say, ‘Never tell somebody to stop singing. That means they’re happy or they have song in their heart,’ ” she continues. “It’s a beautiful expression of who we are as human beings.”

Sing is available Friday on Digital HD, and on Blu-ray and DVD March 21.

(People.com)