The 47-year-old actress, who has children Nahla, six, with ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, and eight-month-old Maceo with husband Olivier Martinez, said she was unimpressed with the movie scripts she was receiving, reported Contactmusic.
"I was being offered parts that I felt like I had done before. They weren't exciting enough for me to leave my family for four months. I realised some of the best writing especially for women, was on television.
'"The minute I started to read ('Extant'), I couldn't put it down. I thought, 'Wow. This is different.' It's innovative," she added.
"Molly is a strong female character, which I really love to play. Molly is a complicated woman with a complicated family. Who is a woman who goes away to space for a year and leaves her husband, first of all? Who is a woman who comes back pregnant and tries to handle it somehow on her own? That just felt like a complication that I wanted to be a part of.