Australian Harper's Bazaar Jan/Feb 2012 cover, photos & interview (edited)

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Interview:

With homes just minutes apart on Long Island, actor Naomi Watts and her photographer brother, Ben, are neighbours and friends. BAZAAR joins the siblings in conversation, while Naomi plays the Hamptons heroine for our shoot.

- by Carrie Buckle. Photographed by Victor Demarchelier.

Naomi Watts, balancing on a stool in a studio in downtown New York, grins as her brother, Ben, imitates her childhood rendition of Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins.

“I think we’ve still got the recording,” Ben says excitedly. “Actually, I brought it today.” They roar with laughter. “It’s very bad and it comes out on certain occasions,” adds a grimacing Naomi, who looks effortlessly stylish in a tweed blazer, jeans and brown biker boots, her hair in a ponytail.

It’s a rare glimpse into the close relationship between the Oscar-nominated actor and her photographer brother, away from the glamour of the red carpet — you can just imagine the riotous times they have when they get together at their beach homes in the Hamptons.

Indeed, her ocean retreat is a perfect place for Naomi, 43, and her partner of seven years, actor Liev Schreiber, 44, to unwind, away from the spotlight. Naomi is back on the big screen this month with biopic J. Edgar, in which she shines as Helen Gandy, the long-standing secretary of infamous FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). While she wasn’t catapulted to fame until David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive in 2001, this latest film is sure to further her flourishing career as an international star with a down-to-earth Aussie mindset.

In the meantime, talented siblings Naomi and Ben, who moved from England to Australia in their teens, and now both live in New York, will always find a way to swap views of skyscrapers for the seaside.

Naomi and Liev enjoy family time with sons Sasha, four, and “Sammy” Kai, three, at their property in pretty Amagansett, New York.

“You feel like you’re on holiday, because this city is so confined,” says Naomi. “You’ve just got to get out and see the sky and breathe the air.” Her retreat is 20 minutes away from the Montauk beach house of Ben, 44, and his partner, fashion PR director Jeanann Williams, and their two-year-old daughter, Ruby. “We love the beach culture,” says Naomi, her face lighting up.

Ben: “We’re really close, but we used to have a few rumbles early on. [Grins]”

Naomi: “Like I learnt to climb trees faster than him. I can bring out the picture of me up the tree waving at him …”

Ben: “I’m stuck like glue to the tree.”

Naomi: “ ... going, ‘Mum!’. It’s funny, my boys are even closer in age than us two. We did honestly fight right from the age we could walk and talk until we left home, and that’s when we became really close. But before that, it was always a bit competitive. I would do anything to be a part of his crowd and share his clothes, his friends, his toys, anything. I wanted to be a ska girl, he was a mod and he would rent me his Ben Sherman shirts.”

Ben: “Until I saw one of your friends wearing it out, and I was like, ‘Why is she wearing my shirt?’.”

Naomi: “It cost $2 and I had to return it washed and ironed.”

Ben: “Freshly laundered. [Smiles]”

Naomi: “Yes, there was a lot of teasing in our house, but I think having a sibling is the best thing. It’s like you have a witness to your life.”

Ben: “That’s true.”

Naomi: “You always feel that, no matter what, you are born alone and will die alone, but you always have this person who had a very, very similar life to you and there’s an understanding. The way we see the world is very similar. I remember the time we found out our dad [Peter Watts, road manager for Pink Floyd] died and we …”

Ben: “We were actually separated at the time because Naomi was at a friend’s place and I was at a mate’s as well. It was over the summer holiday.”

Naomi: “Mum [Myfanwy Watts] did tell us, but we didn’t go to the funeral.”

Ben: “There’s a place for children at every occasion and I think a funeral is perhaps one of them.”

Naomi: “That was the advice of her parents — our grandparents — who obviously thought the old-fashioned way. But a child needs closure, you know?”

Ben: “There’s a great photo of us [with Dad] in Saint-Tropez, actually, where I guess Naomi would have been about one and I’m like two, just all on the beach. It’s in [Floyd drummer] Nick Mason’s Pink Floyd book [Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd].”

*This is an edited version of the interview which appears in the Jan/Feb issue of Harper's BAZAAR