In Hollywood, she is called “late bloom”, in the sense that everything happened quite late in her life: fame came at 31, love and family on the eve of her fortieth birthday. Naomi Watts herself is sure that everything happened exactly when she was ready for it.
The middle-aged waiter nods to her in his own way — not treating her like a star, almost a royal person, but like a regular client, although obviously dear to his heart. (“Of course! Liev and I arrange all business meetings here!”) And offers to bring a towel. «Oh thank you! So I rushed to you, I forgot my umbrella, I didn’t return, at home, in general, bedlam-caravanserai!
«Thank you» to the waiter. The rest is for me, because Naomi Watts was late for our meeting in a cafe in Tribeca by as much as 7 minutes. I can still see how she “takes out” from the entrance in the pouring rain, curses about the umbrella, decides not to return, lets go, almost starts running, quickly turns the corner, flies, elegantly maneuvering, through the Manhattan morning crowd, gets wet to the skin , stumbles at the entrance, struggles with a heavy ebony door, apparently installed back in the days of the Great Depression … to now smile at me with all 150 of his beautiful, undisguised wrinkles and wipe his wet hair with a towel brought by a sympathetic waiter. And also to tell that the kids, her two sons, against the background of an abnormally warm and rainy February, caught a cold, “squish and sob”, the nanny got infected from them and also fell ill, she herself “itches in her nose, and sharpens in her throat”, with a partner in life and the father of the children, Liev Schreiber, the most serious rehearsals in the theater, the nanny-substitute clearly did not like the boys, and they can arrange a “dark” one for her … And I realize: yes, the definition is correct — “bedlam-caravanserai”. Although I don’t specify what the “dark” looks like in the performance of blond angels four and five years old …
“THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT ME: GENERALLY SHE IS CUTE, BUT SEXY AND BEAUTY LACKS HER”
But actually I want to know a lot about the life of Naomi Watts. And about the life of Naomi Watts. Because there is so much life in it! So much liveliness, so much vitality, so much desire to share it all… She wipes her hair, stamps her feet with a heavy boot, pulls the sleeves of her gray sweater over her hands in a girlish way, says that, in principle, she managed to see me only because she always had five minutes to fees. But she is 44 years old. Only 44?
Psychologies: You know you’re called the Hollywood late bloomer, right? In the sense that recognition came to you, by Hollywood standards, late. Yes, and all other life gains, too. Don’t take offense?
Naomi Watts: Why be offended now! The Japanese have an expression—I learned it when I worked as a model in Japan after school—“drink your waterskins.” What does it mean to «exhaust what is due to you» — the sum of the joys, sorrows, and successes that are due to you. So, I drank my wineskins of insults a long time ago. And already … yes, for 13 years I have been drinking only from “positive” furs.
So, if you are 44, you are counting the positive in life from the age of 31. That is, with Mulholland Drive, your acting triumph in a David Lynch film…
N. U .: Yeah, it was then that I was walking along the Cannes red carpet, and at that time in Los Angeles things were being taken out of my apartment for non-payment. And if Nick (Nicole Kidman, girlfriend of Watts. — Approx. ed.) had not rushed, then I would have remained even without clothes. I’m not talking about my favorite table lamp. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then! For ten years in Hollywood, I went to auditions, auditions, got by with what the hell kind of earnings, and I was methodically rejected. My agent once gave me the words of a director about me: “She is not beautiful enough, not sexy enough, not enough …” In a word, she is sweet, but a little bit of everything is missing. And by the way, I do not know if she did not convey this opinion then to end my torment. So that I quit this doomed business — to become an American actress — and go back to my place in Australia … But then my mother put my brains in my place: “Don’t listen to anyone. There is only one way to live interestingly in life, and that is to do what you really want to do.” You see, she said not «to be happy», but «to live interestingly.» And the truth is, it’s not the same thing. And I really didn’t think at all — and I don’t think — that I should definitely be happy. And we are all obliged to live interestingly. But for this, you really need to do what you want to do. I had no doubts about this at the time.
But still, amazing perseverance: 10 years in constant struggle …
N. U .: Yes, what is it? By that time I was already used to starting from scratch. How many times? I don’t even remember it. I was 14 when my mother brought me and my brother to Australia. We just left the past in England. And they started from scratch in a new country. Then I became an actress for the first time. At the age of 14, when Nick and I met. Teenagers tried to act in commercials, now it’s impossible to watch my Tampax ad without laughter: “Tampax is the only thing that won’t let you down!” … And it seemed that I decided to become an actress. I dropped out of school — I still don’t understand how my mother allowed me, I will never allow my own! — and again tried to act. A year later, she went to Japan as a model. At the age of 18, all alone in a foreign country … Complete collapse, got fat because of nervousness. I returned home to Sydney with a firm conviction: no more acting and no more modeling. I got a great job — organizing fashion shoots for a large department store. Two years later, she was an assistant fashion editor for a women’s gloss. And she was convinced that she had finally found herself. She wrote amazingly, as it seemed to me, important columns. For example, she wrote about why a white blouse is rod-forming! — Wardrobe item. But one Friday, a guy I knew from acting classes — we went together as a child — asked for help in the acting workshop he had opened. And… on Monday, I submitted my resignation. It was an insight: I only need to be an actress. It was, it turns out, my fourth time “from scratch”. Then Nick and I landed roles in our Australian hit Flirt. Then there was success in another local series … And I could become a full-fledged star in Australia. But I decided to go to Hollywood. To again everything from scratch …
“I HAD A FEELING AS LIKE I JUST WAS NOT. ONLY AT 31 I FINALLY BECOME MYSELF»
But Nicole became a star quickly, literally immediately after arriving in the United States. And then they said — thanks to the novel and marriage to Tom Cruise …
N. U .: Are you implying that I should have been jealous of her? What do you! Nicole is the person who supported me all these years … And not only morally: she tried to give me protection more than once, negotiated with agents for actors, desperately convinced the directors that they needed me … In my opinion, our friendship is exactly O’Henry’s story «Help, friend!»: we have each other in the full sense, that is, we will always come to the rescue. When I was bent, Nick was always there. And when Nick divorced Tom, it was painful, she lived with me. She says that her favorite place on earth is my house with Liev in the Hamptons. What envy is there … And how can you envy when … We are all capable, charming, sweet. Nick is a huge talent. The best tragic actress of our generation. And besides … you see, nature here — Nick, you will agree, is completely exceptional in appearance, and this is also a rare gift. But the main thing … Well, how to feel envy of a person who has always been convinced that you are worthy of everything — fame, recognition?
Did you feel it yourself too?
N. U .: Oh, I felt different! I had the feeling that I was simply not there … But Nicole then told me: one role — and everything will change. One act, all forces will be concentrated in it, and everything will change. And as a result, it did.
Do you doubt yourself at all?
N. U .: Perhaps there is such a thing — and this feeling comes from childhood. I’m not talking about moving to Australia, it was definitely the right thing for my mother to do. But back in England … When my parents divorced, I was 4, my brother was 5. We constantly moved — it was difficult for my mother to find a job. They constantly changed schools, environment, lost and found friends. Although it taught us … yes, a certain flexibility — after all, each time you had to adapt to new circumstances. To new mores, new rules, it was even necessary to speak in a local dialect — depending on which part of Britain we found ourselves in … This flexibility eventually played a bad joke on me — out of habit in Hollywood, as in a new place for me, I always trying to please. Don’t be yourself, but love it. Adjust again — to look at yourself. That’s why I was so struck by the meeting with Lynch. He saw my photo and invited me to try out at Mulholland Drive, I came, and he started asking me questions about my mother, about my family, about Japan … I was in shock: fuck, is anyone really interested in me? Here I am, outside of any acting? And the directors have never spoken to me like that …
In Mulholland Drive, you played yourself to a certain extent. That episode when your heroine passes tests: suddenly from a provincial girl who came to seek her fortune in Hollywood, she turns into a great actress. In front of our viewers’ eyes. And she plays in such a way that one cannot understand: she is playing or simply continuing the dramatic conversation started behind the scenes …
N. U .: That’s exactly what Nick was talking about — that all power will one day be concentrated in a single effort. And it will be a breakthrough. It’s just that I wasn’t there before, but by Mulholland Drive I kind of became, took shape. I, apparently, really late bloom. I became myself only at the age of 31. And then everything came together. Even with some participation of mysticism. When I, all on my nerves, in fear of getting tangled in my own train, was walking along the red carpet to the premiere in Cannes, suddenly Morning Has Broken performed by Cat Stevens began to play. A song that I know my father loved. And I calmed down completely.
Your father died when you were 8 years old, and left the family even earlier. Does his memory mean a lot to you?
N. U .: Sometimes it even seems to me that if I grew up with him, he could mean less to me … I didn’t know him at all. And this ignorance is always disturbing. This gap in the roots is like a gap in myself. It’s like a part of me has gone somewhere. And now you won’t find it … I live all my life with this feeling: what would my father say about me now, what would he think about that film, about that role. Would he be proud of me? And what would I think of him if I knew him now … When Heath died (with actor Heath Ledger, Watts had a personal relationship for several years. — Approx. ed.), We have not been together for a long time. And the first thing I thought about was his little daughter — how will she remain without a father? What will he think of him? And will she miss him? Strange, I didn’t think about the fact that I once lost a loved one, but about a girl I didn’t even know. But we have a common, it turns out, fate …
What kind of mother are you to your own children?
N. U .: I try to always be in their lives! They should not have such hesitation about me — what would I think about this or that, how would I react to something. I am always with them. Or they are with me. We are bound by strong ties. Maybe the whole point is that the first one, Sasha, was born when I was already 39? And I managed to understand something about life?
And yet, time goes by, children grow up, and parents have to learn to “let go” of them from themselves. Do you ever think about it?
N. U .: Well, I’m still a woman, and women know for sure that time goes on and on! Time is generally a feminine concept — our biological clock is ticking. But, on the other hand, now I don’t want to worry about it: what you need will come to you. In my time.
You speak with such conviction — it seems that this has happened more than once in your life …
N. U .: All around! For example, Liev and I had many mutual friends even before we met. And some believed that we were made for each other, and even sought to introduce us. And so the years passed. But one day we met — at the annual ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — and met without any mediation. And it turned out that we are both free. And free for each other. I left the next day for shooting in Los Angeles. We exchanged phone numbers. For a few weeks we called and texted each other. And then they met and … united. Quite late for the first serious relationship, but on time. Because I finally turned out to be ready for them … In my youth, I thought that I would have children early, like my mother: she gave birth to a brother at 18, and me at 19. But the “program” went astray, and Sasha was born when I it was already under 40. I thought it was too late. But it turned out — it’s time. Because in adulthood you feel: a child is a natural continuation of life, and not a side effect of love or, there, a special project — when people fulfill some kind of mandatory life program.
Sasha… But your son’s name is Alexander. Sasha is somehow in Russian …
N. U .: Yes, the short form of the name «Alexander». Liev values his Russian roots very much. His mother’s family came to America from Russia. And she named her son after Leo Tolstoy. She is a connoisseur of Russian classics — in literature, in music, in painting. Do you know the artist Levitan? I learned from her. Russian landscape … She is generally a very special woman. A convinced hippie, and now lives in the ashram. Deeply despises social canons, which he calls «social scandals.» Liev spent his childhood in ashrams and communes. She is a brave woman, Lieva’s mother. Like, in fact, mine, which at a certain moment grabbed two children in an armful and emigrated to Australia. I bow to female courage. Maybe because it is not peculiar to me at all — I am not able to go on the attack on life. I, as Liev says, do not put pressure on the scales, but create a vacuum under it, so that it simply pulls down. Don’t laugh, it really is!
Wouldn’t it be better to call this property perseverance?
N. U .: And in my opinion, the usual female property … After all, men are people of the moment, impulse. They are less likely to think about the long, routine — about life, about buying milk every day or organizing the next children’s vacation. But I look at Liev, how he behaves with children — every minute that he is with them, he lives to the fullest, he completely belongs to them, dissolves in them, lives in this minute! And he is the same with me at his rehearsals in the theater. And a woman can exist everywhere at the same time, we absorb everything. We are not the moment, we are always.