Australian actress Rachel Griffiths credits her Brothers & Sisters co-star Calista Flockhart with inspiring her to move back to Australia and focus on motherhood.

The actress moved to America after her screen career took off when she landed a leading role in U.S. Tv show, Six Feet Under.

Her subsequent part in Brothers & Sisters ended when the show was cancelled due to poor ratings in 2011, and Griffiths returned Down Under to work on smaller projects and focus on raising her children.

Now she has spoken out to thank Flockhart for inspiring her head home when she took time off from her career after five years starring as Ally MCBeal.

Griffiths tells Sydney's Daily Telegraph, "Calista was a real model for me...She just walked away after Ally MCBeal. Obviously she had a tremendous amount more money than I did to do that, not to mention (her husband) Harrison Ford, but she just stepped back and embraced her personal life and didn't regret it for a second.

"I had really not seen my children enough. I'd outsourced a lot of that child stuff in order to do 70-to-80 hour weeks on set and I just wanted my kids to actually like me."

Griffiths has three children with her husband Andrew Taylor - Banjo, 10, Adelaide, eight, and Clementine, four.