Keri Russell: Motherhood Introduces "A Whole New Set Of Feelings"

Keri Russell, mother of 2 ½-year-old son River, is set to star in Extraordinary Measures, where she plays a mom trying to save her two children who are dying of a rare genetic disorder. Keri told NYDailyNews that she felt deeply connected to this role now that she's a mother.

Rosie O'Donnell has this great quote. She said something like, "Before you have kids, your life is black and white, and then it's in color." It's just a whole new set of feelings that aren't as accessible to you before you have kids. So you see something sad happening to any kid, and you just instantly access, "Oh my God, what if that happened to my kid?" Everyone just sort of becomes your kid."

The 33-year-old Felicity star went on to say that she and husband Shane Deary love to take River out in their Brooklyn neighborhood. "We go to the park, we go to the farmers' market in Brooklyn. I love having BAM right here. BAM just had this retrospective on Sesame Street, and we saw it, like, on a full ­movie screen. It was River's first movie."

Although growing up in the city does pose its challenges. "Shane and I grew up with a lot of nature around. I grew up in ­Colorado, and he grew up on Martha's Vineyard. So there are tradeoffs. You get all this city culture. We walk to go see Cate Blanchett in A Streetcar Named Desire, and we walk to go to this retrospective on Cary Grant, and it was so cool. But when [you see] the schools have asphalt playgrounds, you're like, "Oh, right. That's how the city kids do it."