Mega Watts

- by HELEN BARLOW, The West Australian Nov 23, 2010

Naomi Watts has emerged from her recent hiatus with a new verve. The mother of two sons, Alexander Pete, 3 and Samuel Kai, 23 months, knows only too well the difficulties of juggling kids and work.

So when she came to portray ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame, who managed to do likewise, she was prepared. Fair Game, which relates the death of Plame's career following her scandalous outing by White House officials, is essentially about a relationship under pressure.

The film is based on separate memoirs by Plame and her outspoken husband, the former American ambassador Joe Wilson, who is portrayed with gusto by Sean Penn. "Of course there were ups and downs of doubting each other," says Watts of the couple's relationship.


"It went so against Valerie's nature and training to speak out publicly. She was a covert officer and what's wonderful learning about them is they're very different people, yet they seem to complement each other so well. They're united in their beliefs."

The film's director, Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), commends Watts' performance. "It was important to preserve that tough exterior Valerie had as a covert officer," he says. "She is lying to people through the entire movie - to her friends, to her husband and to people in the field. Yet you still have to root for that person and Naomi allows us to do that. She brought with her an inner goodness."

Having only made one movie a year since his best-actor Oscar win for Milk, Penn chose this role after being approached by good friend Watts.

"This was the third time we'd worked together," she notes, "and in-between we created a great friendship. So when Doug told me Sean was his first choice I sent him an email, and said 'You've got to read this. I think you'll like it.'

"Sure enough, he responded right away. We had a shorthand while making the movie. Some of our scenes, especially when we were in the house, were very intense. We only had three weeks with Sean so it was lucky we had this history."

Watts has long worked with the best, from her breakthrough in Mulholland Drive with David Lynch to her scene- stealing turn in 21 Grams, where she played Penn's wife.

Having started out alongside Nicole Kidman in Flirting, she had waited for the phone to ring for years in Los Angeles, though her patience was ultimately rewarded.

More of a dramatic actress than a fully fledged movie star like her friend, she has commanded great respect from the likes of Penn (who enlisted her again to play his wife in The Assassination of Richard Nixon) and Ed Norton, with whom she made the widely under-estimated The Painted Veil.

It was on that film she met her long-time partner, Liev Schreiber, another esteemed actor who this year received his second Tony nomination for his performance alongside Scarlett Johansson in a New York revival of Arthur Miller's play, A View from the Bridge. Watts and Schreiber live in downtown New York, near where he was raised, and it seems they couldn't be happier. Both raised by alternative- thinking single mothers, they seem to have no need for marriage. "Oh I'm all for it," Watts counters. "We're just not married. But we have a relationship as if we're married. We share children together and we approach every decision as if we're married."

Though she admits it isn't always plain sailing. "Any relationship takes work and you have to be conscious of other people's needs and communication is key," she observes. "We have kids and we have careers and there is a lot to work out in our relationship and we get through it. You sort of have to go by this thing of taking turns a little bit, which we have just done."

A measure of Watts' standing is that she was sought out by Woody Allen for his latest comedy-drama You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she plays an art gallery employee married to Josh Brolin's self-indulgent author.

"Woody sent me the script and wrote me a really beautiful letter, with some funny joke in it like, 'I would really like the opportunity, as you know, to work with you before I die, which probably won't be long now'," she laughs. "I only met him the day before we started filming and it was literally a handshake."

Next came Fair Game, a tougher assignment where she had to undertake three days of paramilitary training - while breastfeeding every three hours.

"I got to see what Valerie went through," says Watts. "She was number one out of 20 students. I did incredible things that I'll never get to do or wish to do. My head was dunked under water; I was screamed at by several men trying to convince me to reveal information; and I had to ram cars without a helmet. It was intense."

And no, it hasn't stopped there. She has also filmed the horror-thriller Dream House for Jim Sheridan and is currently making The Impossible alongside Ewan McGregor in Thailand. Next year she plans to play the iconic role of Marilyn Monroe for Australian director Andrew Dominik (Chopper) in Blonde, based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel.