Isla Fisher is learning how to navigate a new normal since separating from her estranged husband, Sacha Baron Cohen.
“It’s the most difficult thing that I’ve been through and I’ve learnt so much about myself in the process,” Fisher, 49, told The Times of London of the split in a profile published on Saturday, February 8. “I never imagined my family being separated but we are committed and loving parents.”
Fisher and Cohen, 53, were together for two decades, announcing in April 2024 that they had separated and filed for divorce one year earlier. They are now focused on amicably coparenting their three children.
The Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy star is also a product of divorce — Fisher’s parents separated when she was 9 — and she’s hopeful to model their example in her own life.
“It was very harmonious,” she recalled to the British newspaper of her parents’ post-divorce dynamic. “I don’t ever remember them fighting about anything. They were very inclusive of each other. That’s the dream.”
She added, “Kids are the most important thing and you want them to really feel safe and loved. We are building a new, healthy version of what our family looks like and putting as much care and love into it as possible.”
Isla Fisher Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
Fisher has also been able to lean on her friends to get through the breakup.
“The women in my life have held me … the female relationships that I cultivated in our business, those women have been there for me. I’m actually going to get emotional,” the actress said, specifically shouting out Friends alum Courteney Cox’s kinship. “I’m sitting here today because of them. I’ve learnt so much about the power of female friendship and I’ve just learnt that I do have resilience, who I am outside of a partnership and what my values are. It’s been this expansive learning curve.”
Newly single, Fisher is wholeheartedly ready to embrace a new era.
“I’m trying to readdress my ambition and refocus and get reinspired for my career,” Fisher stated, referring to upcoming roles in Now You See Me 3, Spa Weekend and the animated Dog Man. “The trailer came out when we were in the Everyman [movie theater] seeing a movie and my son was like, ‘Mummy, you’re in Dog Man!’ I was like, ‘Don’t cry, Isla.’”
One thing that isn’t on Fisher’s mind right now is dating.
“That’s not on my to-do list,” Fisher quipped. “I’m not ready to think about any of that.”
