Hilary Swank has explained how she kept her pregnancy a secret until she reached her third trimester.

The 52-year-old actress stunned fans earlier this month when she announced she's expecting her third child with husband Philip Schneider and Hilary has now credited the "respectful" residents of the small town where she lives with helping her keep the news quiet until she wanted to reveal it herself.

During an appearance on the Question Everything podcast, she said: "I live in a very small town. It's a town I grew up in, and everyone there has been so just respectful of my privacy and it hasn't leaked.

Hilary - who owns properties in Bellingham, Washington and in Telluride, Colorado - added she didn't even have to stay at home or hide her baby bump, adding: "Clearly, I don't stay at home all the time. I was working up until about 17 weeks pregnant, so no one really knew on set either."

When asked why she waited until late in her pregnancy to make her baby news public, she replied: "I'm a pretty private person, and there was no reason to really, I don't know, say anything."

Hilary - who previously welcomed twins, Aya and Ohm, in April 2023 when she was 48 - told the world about her second pregnancy in an Instagram post and later opened up about her news during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.

Speaking about becoming pregnant again later in life, she explained: "This was the right time for me. Not everything happens in our own time. We have ideas for timelines for ourselves, and getting pregnant isn't always in our own timeline, right?

"You can hope and pray for certain things, and things happen when they're supposed to happen. I was very excited, and it was a good time for me because I feel like I had this career that was a 'baby' of mine that I really wanted to give to and devote my time to and not share.

"And now I can totally devote [myself] to my children."

Hilary previously told PEOPLE magazine she always knew she wanted to be a mother, saying: "It just worked out that I had babies this much later in life.

"It wasn't that I didn't want them earlier. There were a lot of things that kept that from happening, and so I can really take time to be with them.

"I feel like I get a lot of Mother's Days other than actual Mother's Day because of being able to be so present with them. ...

"I knew I wanted kids someday, but I wasn't planning what that would look like. I know it's so different for everyone, but for me, if I had had a kid in my 20s or my 30s, I think I'd be a much different parent than I am now."