Bryce Dallas Howard 'Didn't Know' She Was Pregnant While Making Spider-Man 3: 'Ironically, My Son Is Blond'

Bryce Dallas Howard is looking back at a special time in her life.

Appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show on Monday, the Argylle actress, 42, looked back at filming Spider-Man 3 while she was pregnant with son Theodore Norman, who turns 17 later this month.

"Oh my gosh, didn’t know it at the time but I was pregnant," she recalled. "And ironically my son is blonde. He’s almost seventeen years old, so this is almost seventeen years ago.

Howard is also mom to daughter Beatrice Jean, 12, both of whom she shares with husband Seth Gabel. 

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Speaking with PEOPLE in this week's issue, Howard opened up about how bringing her eldest son home from the hospital triggered traumatic kidnapping threats from her childhood.

In 2007, “it was a weird time for young women in the business. The relationship with paparazzi and all of that was incredibly fraught for so many people,” said the Jurassic World trilogy alum.

"From a protective place after I had my son I withdrew a lot,” continued the actress, who was also coping with “severe'' postpartum depression at the time. “I was actually scared. I didn't want to risk potentially triggering something that would mean a different life for my kids. I also grew up in a situation where there were some real security (concerns) and that's scary as a parent.”

Bryce tells PEOPLE she was targeted in 1992 as the daughter of actor-director Ron Howard and her novelist mother, Cheryl. After discovering their phones were tapped and suspicious vehicles were monitoring their home in 1992, the family “had to move multiple times,” she says, and ultimately left Los Angeles, with her parents choosing to raise Bryce and her three younger siblings on a farm in Greenwich, Conn. 

That time period “was definitely very defining for me and it's one of the reasons why I think I'm risk averse as a person,” Bryce said. “I don't really take risks unless I'm working. That's where I personally am the most kind of daring and bold.”

And as a mom of a teen and tween, “I'm not very strict as a parent, but I'll ask my kids, ‘Do you think I'm strict?’ And they're like, "No, you're not. Except when it comes to safety."