{"id":1244243,"date":"2025-03-20T12:53:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T12:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1244243"},"modified":"2025-03-20T12:53:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T12:53:22","slug":"for-naomi-watts-back-with-a-new-movie-and-a-book-resilience-is-her-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/for-naomi-watts-back-with-a-new-movie-and-a-book-resilience-is-her-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"For Naomi Watts, back with a new movie and a book, resilience is her friend"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The last time Naomi Watts saw David Lynch was in late November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a beautiful lunch at his house,\u201d she recalls of an afternoon spent with the director and fellow Lynch muse Laura Dern<\/a>. \u201cI knew he\u2019d been unwell but he was in great spirits. He wanted to go back to work \u2014 Laura and I were like, \u2018You can do it! You could work from the trailer.\u2019 He was not, in any way, done. I could see the creative spirit alive in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts says all this with a warm, sad smile, as if still living in this final memory of the filmmaker who changed her life by casting her in \u201cMulholland Drive\u201d \u2014 not just a visionary but someone close to her. Then she sighs. \u201cSo deeply, deeply upsetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grief, it seems, has never been far from Watts\u2019 door. Her father died when she was 7, a death she refers to as \u201cthe big grief,\u201d one that has stayed with her. The loss of two grandmothers last year \u2014 one 99, the other 101 \u2014 and a family dog cut deep. That grief has frequently found its way into her films. Several of Watts\u2019 most indelible characters are in mourning.<\/p>\n

And so on this cool Saturday afternoon at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica, loss is on her mind, not just because of Lynch\u2019s recent death but because the complexity of saying goodbye is at the center of her touching new movie.<\/p>\n

Opening March 28, \u201cThe Friend\u201d stars Watts as struggling New York author Iris. She has no children or partner, but this is not some clich\u00e9d tearjerker in which our protagonist must fill the hole in herself with a baby or a lover. Based on Sigrid Nunez\u2019s 2018 novel, the bittersweet comedy-drama follows an independent woman who, in the wake of the suicide of her mentor and best friend, Walter (Bill Murray), discovers that his last wish was that she look after Apollo, his beloved 150-pound Great Dane.<\/p>\n

Iris recoils at the request. She likes cats, not dogs, and her cozy, book-lined, rent-controlled apartment is in a building that forbids pets. But as she starts to bond with the massive, temperamental animal, Iris realizes that Apollo echoes many of the conflicting qualities she associated with Walter: demanding, impossible, achingly soulful. Her friend left without explanation, but maybe Apollo can provide the closure Walter\u2019s death never will.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve played grieving mothers, wives, everything,\u201d Watts says. \u201cBut this felt different because there was something so lovely at the core. [Iris is] not solving her grief but managing her grief through this connection with this magical creature. What is it with dogs that makes us so enamored? They\u2019re so deeply loyal \u2014 it did feel different for that reason, like there was hope. The stories of grief that I\u2019ve done before feel a lot darker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wearing a black suit jacket over an ivory blouse and blue jeans, Watts, 56, is open, welcoming and full of gentle humor. Endearingly self-deprecating, she admits to a case of impostor syndrome, her life a constant triumphing over doubt and anxiety. \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know how I kept going,\u201d she says of her career struggles when she was in her late 20s, before Lynch made her name in Hollywood. \u201cAll I can say is I knew resilience \u2014 I have that ingrained in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When co-writers and co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel went searching for their Iris, they wanted a performer who could convey vulnerability and a nuanced interior life. \u201cWhen you look at her face,\u201d says McGehee in a separate interview, \u201cshe\u2019s one of those actresses that can do a lot, make you feel like there\u2019s an interesting person inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, they also needed someone who was a dog person, which was certainly true of Watts \u2014 so much so that it caused them a moment\u2019s hesitation.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/span><\/div>\n

“I knew I could make my friends laugh,” Watts says of her anxious years before breaking out. “I knew I could be sexy. But I just believed everyone else’s voices more than my own.” (Jennifer McCord \/ For The Times)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAround the time we first started talking about her, she had a dog that she was very close with that she lost,\u201d McGehee says, referring to Watts’ 20-year-old Yorkshire terrier Bob, who died in 2021<\/a>. \u201cWe were concerned that having just lost a dog that maybe there\u2019d be an emotional thing that would be hard for her. But that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no parallels with me,\u201d Watts acknowledges when discussing how little crossover there is between her and Iris, though she adds, \u201cI could relate to her loneliness, not feeling connected enough to the people around me.\u201d Unlike her single, solitary character, Watts is married \u2014 to actor Billy Crudup \u2014 and the mother of two teenagers from her previous marriage to actor Liev Schreiber.<\/p>\n

Her stardom, now so apparent, hardly felt preordained. She was born in Shoreham, Kent, in England, her parents separating when she was 4. Her father, a sound engineer and tour manager for Pink Floyd, died in 1976 from an apparent heroin overdose. When Watts was 14, her mother took her and her younger brother, Ben, to Australia, where Watts enjoyed some local success, landing a role in the 1991 Australian comedy-drama \u201cFlirting.\u201d But she dreamed bigger.<\/p>\n

Then came the fruitless years. Watts tried to make it in American indies, audition after audition leading nowhere. She has made no secret of the fact that her agents were constantly told that she wasn\u2019t sexy or funny enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I could make my friends laugh,\u201d she says. \u201cI knew I could be sexy. But I just believed everyone else\u2019s voices more than my own.\u201d Grappling with anxiety, Watts considered giving up and moving back to Australia. Her mom stopped her.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother [was] staying with me at the time \u2014 I was living in an apartment in Venice, right on the canals. I came home in pieces, shredded, sobbing. I was late two months’ rent. I said, \u2018I can\u2019t do it anymore. This isn\u2019t working.\u2019\u201d After Watts told her mom about the feedback she’d received after yet another disastrous audition, her mom replied, \u201cGet a backbone. Just fight. That is not who you are. It doesn\u2019t matter that you\u2019re not brilliant in those rooms \u2014 you\u2019re trying to be something else and you\u2019re covering who you are, so just go in with what you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts takes a moment to collect herself after remembering her mom\u2019s words, delivered with tough love. \u201cIt was one of the best pep talks of my life,\u201d she says, \u201cand it\u2019s all I really needed. I\u2019ll get a lump in my throat just thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after, Lynch came across her headshot while preparing \u201cMulholland Drive,\u201d convinced she would be perfect for Betty, a fresh-faced aspirant just arrived in the City of Angels, ready to run down her acting fantasies. That now-famous headshot<\/u><\/a> was taken by Watts\u2019 brother, Ben, a photographer, who shot it for free. \u201cWe did it, I think, in my apartment,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe put a white sheet up. I did my own makeup. Ben is one of the best photographers. He knows how to capture me better than many fancy photographers.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Watts met Lynch, they hit it off, the director\u2019s genuine interest calming the nerves she often felt during auditions. Soon, the role was hers, and her career exploded. A year after \u201cMulholland Drive,\u201d she starred in the hit American remake of \u201cThe Ring.\u201d Then came 2003\u2019s \u201c21 Grams\u201d<\/a> and a lead actress Oscar nomination for playing Cristina, a recovering addict who plummets into drug abuse after her husband and child die in a car accident. Those subsequent parts demonstrated her box-office appeal as well as her ability to grippingly portray characters riven by trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven to this day,\u201d she says, \u201cpeople think of me as the woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

But just as Watts\u2019 star was ascending, she received alarming news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 36 when I was told I was close to menopause,\u201d she says. \u201cI had my 36th birthday on \u2018King Kong\u2019 \u2014 I was still playing ing\u00e9nues. I was in total shock: I\u2019ll never be able to play a leading lady again. It\u2019s not just my fertility that\u2019s going to vanish, it\u2019s this career that\u2019s just getting launched.\u201d<\/p>\n

The diagnosis, which came much earlier for her than for most women and before she had kids, left her reeling. (She ultimately did give birth to her two children, although it required experimenting with different fertility treatments, about which she is refreshingly candid.) But it also made her wonder why, despite coming from a family of assertive women, she was so uninformed about what to expect from menopause. For a long time, Watts feared speaking out about her symptoms because she worried how she\u2019d be viewed in an industry that prizes youthfulness above all else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some cowardice,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely hid, but to the point where it was too much hiding and too exhausting and too burdensome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, she had enough, which ultimately led to her book, \u201cDare I Say It: Everything I Wish I\u2019d Known About Menopause,\u201d released in January. Part memoir, part practical guide<\/a>, the book takes us through her own odyssey while also including advice from medical experts. It\u2019s frank and funny, very much like Watts herself. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a bit of an oversharer,\u201d confesses Watts, laughing.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/span><\/div>\n

“You do get yourself back, but it’s a different you,” Watts says of living with menopause, about which she’s written a refreshingly candid book. “I see it as a new chapter that can be really empowering.” (Jennifer McCord \/ For The Times)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only in the last five years that I started properly understanding what was going on with my body,\u201d she says. But for Watts, there has also been renewal. \u201cIt was so freeing that it did allow for confidence to build. I mean, I still have anxiety and things become more difficult, like learning dialogue or remembering people\u2019s names. But you get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thinks about how menopause can leave one wondering: Do I get myself back? Who am<\/i> I now? Watts has her answer: \u201cYou do get yourself back, but it\u2019s a different you. I see it as a new chapter that can be really empowering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts is proud of her recent work, including her complex, rueful Babe Paley in the 2024 FX series \u201cFeud: Capote vs. the Swans,\u201d<\/a> for which she earned an Emmy nomination. She\u2019s cognizant of the ups and downs of her career \u2014 and how, of late, the downs had outnumbered the ups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lull,\u201d she admits, pointing out that she wanted to work close to home for a stretch to be near her young children. That phase is over now, however. \u201cI did run into moments when I was doing the \u2018Feud\u2019 press where people were like, \u2018Where have you been? It\u2019s good to see you back.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018I didn\u2019t go anywhere.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts insists such comments don\u2019t offend her. \u201cI had a really lucky and strong start after the David Lynch launch \u2014 that was a good five, six years where one great thing led to another.\u201d Since then, she says, \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been a clear upward trajectory, it\u2019s been successes and failures. But they\u2019ve all been experiences that have led to something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts got to collaborate with Lynch after \u201cMulholland Drive,\u201d first providing a voice cameo in 2006\u2019s \u201cInland Empire\u201d and appearing in what would be his final project, the acclaimed \u201cTwin Peaks: The Return.\u201d<\/a> But just as important, they remained friends. \u201cI thought I would see him in a couple of weeks [after that last lunch] because I was here in L.A.\u201d Watts pauses. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot I could share but I want to be private about it because of his family. But it was a really powerful meeting that filled me with just so much love and hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both in real life and in \u201cThe Friend,\u201d Watts finds herself picking up the pieces after the departure of a mentor, reflecting on his impact. And although she is understandably guarded, there\u2019s one memory she doesn\u2019t mind sharing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took an accidental picture,\u201d she says. \u201cWe took a picture of all of us, but then my camera remained open and I bumped it \u2014 it was a picture of the perfect architecture of his house and two palm trees. It just screamed L.A. and David Lynch. I sent the picture of the three of us, and then that random picture that said so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a perfect blue sky,\u201d she continues, musing about the accidental photo. \u201cHis house \u2014 he really loved that space. Blue skies, hope, magic, just dreamy. I sent him a text and he wrote back the most incredible David response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts laughs and says no more, less out of coyness than serenity. She has lost so much along the way. But as \u201cThe Friend\u201d suggests, maybe other things are gained. The film and her lilting performance in it show how grief can coexist with a kind of grace \u2014 a peace with the unknowability of what lies beyond. There\u2019s still something mysterious about Watts, even for all her openness. She\u2019ll save Lynch\u2019s text as a secret for herself. It\u2019s hers to keep.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Indie Focus, a weekly newsletter about movies and what\u2019s going on in the wild world of cinema.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n