Grace Under Pressure
by Ashley Jude Collie, Celebrated Living
by Ashley Jude Collie, Celebrated Living
At ease playing tag in Central Park or working the red carpet, Naomi Watts is the epitome of grace under pressure.
For Naomi Watts, who has never looked more beautiful or been in more demand as an actress, sleep “is the most precious, hard thing” to come by in her life.
When the 42-year-old beauty phoned us from location in Thailand where she was shooting The Impossible with Ewan McGregor, she had just finished working with a fitness trainer on the beach and had also eyed a yoga class that seemed appealing. The day before, she’d been on an adventurous elephant ride through the forest. She was also wondering whether she could squeeze in an underwater dive session with her partner, fellow actor Liev Schreiber. Oh yes, and the couple had brought along their two boys, Sasha and Kai, whom Watts sweetly describes as a “fitness challenge unto themselves.”
Just plain busy hardly describes her last three-plus years, which included the birth of both her boys and which ended with her impressive work in three movies released in 2010 including Mother and Child and Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger. The third movie, alongside two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn, was Fair Game, which garnered Watts powerful praise for her portrayal of courageous and real-life CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Her upcoming movies include Dream House, a psychological thriller; The Impossible, a true story about a mother and her family in Thailand when the tsunami struck in 2004; and Untitled Comedy, a series of short comedies with a unifying story line.
And she’s already begun work for the highly anticipated movie adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ epic novel Blonde, in which British-born, Australian-raised Watts will portray perhaps the most iconic Hollywood woman, Marilyn Monroe. Watts epitomizes the active life, yet manages to balance both career and personal life . . . as long as she gets her “rest and sleep.”
Watts’ acting career didn’t kick into high gear till she was in her early 30s. But she always had a network of “really strong relationships with women,” one of whom she met on her first casting in Australia. She recalls that Nicole Kidman always encouraged her. “Nicole kept saying, ‘One thing will make a difference.’ And she was right — David Lynch and Mulholland Dr. changed everything for me. Nicole is a pretty tenacious and determined person. Yes, like me.”
Watts played a complex dual role in that breakthrough performance in director Lynch’s 2001 psychological thriller, and since then her diverse talents have seen her star in dozens of films including The Ring (2002), Le Divorce (2003), 21 Grams (also in 2003 and for which she received an Oscar nomination), King Kong (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), The International (2009), right up to Fair Game.
From thrillers to adventures, from personal dramas and comedy to Blonde, there’s a thread to Watts’ choice of roles, and it’s all about the character.
“Blonde is based on a masterpiece of a novel, and I’m looking forward to filming it. I’m not really thinking that Marilyn was such an iconic figure. What interests me, like with many of the parts I choose, is the life and arc she had. I like my job because we get to show all sides of a character. And as humans, no one person is only one thing — a hero is not always a hero; he or she has their tragic flaws. The thing about taking on different characters, you get to explore the different facets of a character, and they reflect some aspects of your experience, things you’ve thought about or seen in other people . . . and you get to live in the shoes of those other people.
“As for Marilyn Monroe, what an extraordinary life she did have, from her very humble beginnings, what she came from and where she ended up. There’s a lot of tragedy in her life, but there was also a very highly spirited and charismatic person. I’ve been refreshing myself on her movies, obviously some very classic films. I’ve been making mental notes from the novel. And the movie will be quite an undertaking.”
Like Marilyn, who moved around a lot as a child, Watts says there was a lot of love but also chaos in her own early life, and much moving around in England and Wales, especially after her parents divorced when she was 4 and then when her English father, Peter, tragically died three years later. “I am comfortable with chaos. I don’t mind it. In fact, I almost get a bit twitchy when it’s too quiet.”
Her father was a tour manager with the famous English classic rock band Pink Floyd. She says he was a workaholic but says his passion for his work is still a constant source of inspiration for her. “Both of his children, Ben and I, ended up being two creative people who love their work.”
And her Welsh mother, Myfanwy, who later moved her two kids to Australia when Naomi was 14, offered something else. “Mum is a survivor. That’s the heart and spirit of who she is. She is an adventurer as well, a gypsy, which also rubbed off on me. She likes to travel; she likes new and inspirational things. She, like me, likes a challenge. Bring it on!”
So how does a full-time actress and mother with a bit of wanderlust in her soul look equally at ease playing with her family in Central Park or in dramatic designer dresses on the red carpet? How does she pull it all off during the busiest time of her life?
Her formula includes Pilates, yoga, working out in the gym, swimming, good nutrition, and, perhaps most importantly, the help of a trainer. Watts is refreshingly honest when she says with a laugh, “I have a love-hate relationship with exercise. I don’t necessarily enjoy exercise a lot. I’m not a mad enthusiast. The minute I get bored I need to change it up. I often use a trainer because I need motivation. It’s not like I jump out of bed and say, ‘All right, let’s get to the gym or jog around the reservoir in Central Park.’”
Pilates was one discipline that helped her through both pregnancies and also helped her get back in shape for work. “I used Pilates a lot because you don’t want to be too aggressive in your workouts during your pregnancy. So good gentle disciplines, like Pilates, swimming, and yoga, were very helpful during [my pregnancy] and after my first baby. But as you reach 40 your body changes, and I found it didn’t recover as easily from my second baby. It might not have looked like that because I don’t hold that much extra weight on my frame. But it was totally different for me, particularly in my stomach and core. A Pilates regimen is all centered on the core — stretching it and making it strong and flexible. So I got very aggressive in my workout regime to get back into fighting shape, so to speak, with my instructor.”
As for nutrition, despite her svelte look, Watts says she never deprives herself of food. “I’m moderate, but I certainly don’t go to a place and say I’m not going to have all sorts of things. The thing is, unfortunately, the minute I start putting restrictions on my diet is when I start craving things. So I just don’t bother with it and eat whatever I want. My metabolism, knock on wood, has been pretty good.”
For someone who’s been kind of nomadic most of her life, Watts says she’s now “enjoying nesting, buying furniture, and being settled” in Manhattan when she’s not filming. At home, food is dictated by what her boys eat. “I’m not a brilliant cook, but I do love cooking. And with children, you end up cooking a lot more than you used to.” She luckily has no problems with them eating healthfully as they love “tons of greens,” and her home-cooked specialties include lightly fried tilapia. Another one really hits the kids’ sweet spot: “They love my honey, soy, and ginger chicken drumsticks baked in the oven. They just love holding those drumsticks. And yes, they love making a right old mess of it.”
Last summer, when she and Schreiber were in Manhattan, they’d take the boys out on bikes to Central Park, have a picnic, “and let them run free.” And now she says the boys are “just getting to the age where we can explore the city, do more adventurous things like taking a long walk to the river or to the natural history museum, which is fantastic. And I can still walk around a little unrecognized.”
The sense of adventure that Myfanwy Watts gave to her kids Naomi now imparts to her children when she goes on location to film. “When we get away with them now, we spend a lot of time at the beach, looking for crabs with buckets and spades. Liev and I have gone diving with the sharks and other sea life in Tahiti — an incredible experience. I think he’s dying to get the boys into it when they’re ready. These types of trips are now becoming interesting to the boys because they can participate.”
Watts, who was actually pregnant during the filming of Mother and Child, confirms that motherhood has changed everything, that it’s “both challenging and the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.” But there’s been an added bonus to her career. “Now that I have children, you feel everything more. Life has more layers. You’re not just thinking of yourself anymore. So when you’re reading a script or working through a character, you feel the depth more by understanding of things beyond just yourself. You see things through the eyes of somebody else now as a parent, and maybe as an actor that helps you get closer to a character. You’re more attuned.”
She also admits that being a mother may impact some of her future work choices. “It would be great to do a movie that would impress my kids, make them smile. Maybe get to do a voice-over in an animated movie or something like that.” As the interview winds down, she politely asks, “Can this be the last question? I’m sorry, Ashley, but my kids are waiting.” And even as her career continues to roll, Watts admits once her workday is over, she finds herself racing back to her kids and not bringing her work back with her in the way that she used to. “I used to stay up in the wee hours, going over the script, thinking about the character, what I was going to do the next day on the set.”
After work these days, it’s more about getting those drumsticks in the oven, enjoying some playtime with the kids, and, yes, there’s that precious thing called sleep.
3 comments:
Thank you for sharing. Great article.
These are old photos by her brother Ben, but the article is new. Thanks.
Good article. Garcia!
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