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LA Confidential (November 2006)
Free To Be Naomi
Highbrow horror. Period drama. Blockbuster action. Slapstick for intellectuals. The sublime Naomi Watts, star of 'The Painted Veil', does it all, and does it well. We checked in with her for the latest on loving Liev, inhabiting two coasts, and building a repertoire that includes anything and everything. Certain names look just great on a marquee. They lure audiences, like a siren’s song. They guarantee that whatever you’re about to see over a $6 popcorn and Sno-Caps will be at least mildly entertaining. And when that name is Naomi Watts, you have an extra guarantee that the project will have teeth and be unlike anything she’s done before. Born in Shoreham, Kent, England, and raised between England and Wales until age 14, Watts moved with her mother to Sydney, Australia, for her teen years. (Her father, a sound engineer for Pink Floyd, passed away when she was seven.) In Australia, she trained as an actor—famously meeting and befriending Nicole Kidman at her first class—and eventually landed small roles there. Hollywood beckoned, and after years of trying, she broke out in David Lynch’s sensation Mulholland Drive in 2001. What followed has been a highly unusual string of mostly hit projects like The Ring, Ned Kelly, We Don’t Live Here Anymore, and I Heart Huckabees. Meanwhile, 21 Grams, by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, provided her a grand forum, and the results yielded her an Oscar nomination. And let us not forget the gorilla—last year, she deftly stepped into the Fay Wray role in Peter Jackson’s blockbuster remake of King Kong. Next, she joins Edward Norton and her boyfriend, Liev Schreiber, in director John Curran’s film adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Painted Veil. It’s about finding change in remarkable ways—something Watts has made her calling card. LOS ANGELES CONFIDENTIAL: It’s nice to speak with you! Thanks for making the time. NAOMI WATTS: Of course! I’m just rushing in from Pilates now. LAC: You split your time between New York and LA, correct? NW:> I spent eight months in New York this year. I haven’t really been working, and Liev’s there. LAC: But you’ve recently gone back to work. NW: Right now I’m working on [Michael Haneke’s] Funny Games, which finishes up in November. Then I’m going on to do David Cronenberg’s new film, which is presently untitled. That’s set in London, which is cool. I have quite a few friends there. LAC: So, you’re back to being crazy again. NW: Yes. I’m doing movies back to back… but both are small movies, so fairly short shoots. LAC: Why the decision to take much of this year off? NW: I had been working back to back for five years, and there comes a point where it’s beyond exhausting. You feel a lack of inspiration after a while; it becomes an office job... so I needed to take time out. I felt I was missing out on life and what was going on. So, I decided to spend some time in Africa, traveling to Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. LAC: You spent your teen years in Australia. Did you take a year abroad like most Australian teenagers do around age 18? NW: Yes. Around the age of 18, everyone in Australia does a yearlong trip. You take your backpack and stay on the road. I went around the age of 17, and did a lot of Europe—Italy, France—as well as Thailand and Bali. We’re definitely good travelers. LAC: You shot much of your latest film, The Painted Veil, in China, correct? NW: That was last year; we finished in October. It was an extraordinary backdrop. Everything you see in the film was so incredible—those peaked mountains. I could never quite believe it was real. LAC: Your character, Kitty Fane, must have been great fun to play. NW: She’s such a wonderful character, with a brilliant transformation. I always look for a transformation whereby the character is given a sense of growth, and, ultimately, doesn’t need to end up on top. She’s just richer for the experience. LAC: The film had been in the works for while, right? NW: This material was sent to me when I was shooting the first Ring movie. There was a year or two when several different great directors were involved. Both Edward [Norton] and I had work in the meantime, so it took its time to find its feet. Finally, we were all available, and we found the perfect director in John Curran. John was someone I’ve worked with before [on 2004’s We Don’t Live Here Anymore]. He and Edward clicked right away. He was perfect because we needed someone who could take this piece and not make it too classical. Period pieces can feel stodgy and staid, and that’s what we didn’t want. LAC: In it, you sport that gorgeous, brunette bob. How was it, going brown? NW: It felt true to the period. Not that Kitty is written as a brunette in Maugham’s book. I just wanted her to have an extra element. When you’re blonde people tend to think you’re vulnerable. It gave me another dimension to work with. LAC: The film is yet another interesting choice, and your career has taken such unusual turns. Like The Ring series—how did that project come about? NW: To be honest, I’ve never been much of a fan of the horror genre, but when it was sent to me I thought it was a really smart script. I was very on the fence about it, but [director] Gore Verbinski really tipped me over. At that point, I’d been trying to get a job for 10 years in LA.… I had my bits and pieces, but nothing to write home about. There was, of course, Mulholland Drive, when I got all the recognition and awards, after which I just thought I’d better play my cards like… But The Ring was very well written, and with Verbinski—the fact that his career started in music and was part of such a stylish arena—it wounded up being a really good film. LAC: It was smart horror. NW: Absolutely. And the people at DreamWorks, they have given the genre an entirely new lease. LAC: So, what are you working on now? NW: I’ve been filming Funny Games. That’s another type of genre, entirely…. Very much a thinking man’s film. LAC: Do you have guidelines or a grand plan for your career? NW: Not at all. It’s nice that you get offered big project here and there… but I just want to do my own thing. I’ll explore whatever I read and makes sense to me. My agents have never said, “You must do this.…” There’s an unspoken dialogue between us; we are tapped into each other. They might say, “You’re getting offered so much money, just read this,” and I’ll get to page 10 and say “Nope!” LAC: That’s refreshing to hear. NW: I’m not trying to run an empire. But hey, of course, I like money… particularly to buy homes. I bought my mom a house. She’s going to sell it and buy a new one in the south of France. LAC: And where would you most like to live? NW: My dream is to get a house in Italy…. I’m drawn to Tuscany, but I also like southern Italy. We’ll see. LAC: Recently, you were photographed quite a bit during fashion week in New York. NW: I went to two things! The Free Arts-Vanity Fair party and a Saks party. LAC: Are you involved much in the fashion world? NW: Not much, although I feel very loyal to Marc Jacobs, who has been very good to me. And the same goes for Calvin Klein. LAC: How does your life in LA differ from your life in New York? NW: In New York, there are four or five things to do every night. It’s exhausting, just opening the invites…. I can’t do it all. In LA, I have no social life, whatsoever. I like it for that reason. I isolate for that reason…. I have an inner circle of friends in LA, and we’ll do dinner parties or go to the same few restaurants around Brentwood. LAC: The tempos are entirely different, but complement each other nicely. NW: I love New York for all its chaos and that there is so much going on. You’re always plugged in. And the great thing about LA is you can unplug…. You get healthy, the sun’s always shining. You go to the beach, hiking… And I’ve got a gorgeous house in Brentwood, with a garden and swimming pool. Generally speaking, when I’m in LA I don’t work. LAC: Do you think you could ever get Liev to come to LA and stay for a while? NW: Liev? No, he’s such a New Yorker. LAC: Have you ever seen him perform on stage? NW: I saw the Mamet play, Glengarry [Glen Ross, for which he won a Tony], and Macbeth [live in Central Park], in which he was incredible. LAC: His directorial debut was in 2005’s Everything is Illuminated. Is he planning on directing something else soon? NW: He’s always reading material, though there’s nothing planned at the moment. LAC: Would you consider being in a film that he directs? NW: Of course! I think he’s brilliant. LAC: So, you’re two world-class actors. Do you discuss work with one another? NW: We do like having the odd conversation about acting, but it’s nice to leave that at work and have the rest of it be about us. LAC: Is your relationship particularly dramatic? It must be. NW: [Laughs.] We’re both emotional people… strong-willed and emotional. But it’s generally very calm. By Andrew Stone © L.A. Confidential Magazine |
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