Ellen Pompeo's children make her "so mad" at times.
The 55-year-old actress - who is best known for starring as Meredith Grey in the hit medical drama 'Grey's Anatomy' - is mother to Stella, 15, Sienna, 10, and Eli, eight, with her husband Chris Ivery
and explained that she has to channel the emotion she feels when they are misbehaving into her work.
She told US TV show 'Extra': "I think all mothers have that intensity and that passion and love for children and also this sort of drive to want to be the best mother you can be. And what does that mean to different people? Everybody has their own version of what that is, and that's their truth.
"And so, I think just that intensity, to tap into that intensity that I feel in moments when my children are making me so proud and doing something and my heart just explodes or when they're making me so mad and they just, you know, won't take a bath.
"They're just refusing to do what you're asking them to do and you have 20 minutes and you have to get it done. You can draw on all those things and then you just, you know, have a double espresso and ramp it up."
Ellen has played her signature role as medic Meredith in Shonda Rhimes' drama for almost 20 years but now she is starring in 'Good American Family', she admitted that she was able to do something "completely different" as she takes on the part of a woman who adopts a child with dwarfism in the Hulu series.
She said: "It was an opportunity to step into something completely different, because I worked with the hair and makeup team and the brilliant costumer. We had so much fun. These craftspeople in this business, in Hollywood, what they do, what they're able to do, they're so so good at what they do, and it's so fun collaborating with them, because they're the best at what they do. You really just sit back and let them say what they think it should be.
"It's a collaboration, but they're the best at what they do, so you wanna hear everything they have to say and embrace their ideas, and it just, magic happens. I love the collaboration of it all with all our crew people here in town. They're all fantastic, and they made it really fun because the process of finding the character becomes so fun."