Naomi Watts Interview, The International

Naomi Watts is an accomplished actress consistently receiving rave reviews and accolades for her many performances. In 2004, she was honored with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s “21 Grams.” 

Her performance in “21 Grams,” in which she starred alongside Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro, also garnered Best Actress Awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Southeastern Film Critics Association, Washington Area Film Critics and San Diego Film Critics, as well as Best Actress nominations from the SAG Awards, BAFTAs, Broadcast Film Critics and Golden Satellites. At the film’s premiere at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, she received the Audience Award (Lion of the Public) for Best Actress. Watts recently starred opposite Viggo Mortensen in David Cronenberg’s drama/thriller “Eastern Promises” and Michael Haneke’s thriller, “Funny Games.”

MoviesOnline sat down with Naomi Watts to talk about her new film, “The International,” a gripping thriller directed by Tom Tykwer from an original screenplay written by Eric Singer. Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war.

Naomi Watts is a terrific actress and we really appreciated her time. Here’s what she had to tell us about her new movie, “The International”:

Q: What was your most challenging scene in the movie?
 
Naomi Watts: Let me think. I think probably the political rally that we shot in Milan. It was very fragmented. There were so many people in that scene. It was shot very much out of sequence. When you shoot scenes like that, you really have to stay focused and it was spread out over many days.
 
Q: How important was it for you to find a role model for this character? The idea of an ADA getting this involved in a case is not what we would normally see on Law and Order. Did you go to the New York District Attorney's office?
 
Naomi Watts: I met with an ADA in New York. They hunted her down and I was able to take some meetings with her and talk with her about what it's like in the office and just being a woman operating very much in a man's world, and she talked and gave me a lot of insight into that. She basically said you have to be on your game the whole time. Most of these men are pretty tough and they'll try and take advantage of you -- not in a sexual way or anything like that, but in a power struggle kind of way. So, you'd better be on your game and not be sort of slinking around the office. So, that was good.
 
Q: How was Tom Tykwer as a director?
 
Naomi Watts: He's a fantastic director. I loved working with him. He's so well prepared at all times. Firstly, what he did was create a schedule that suited me and obviously was probably very difficult to organize, but it suited me and my newborn because I got to the set two months after they had been shooting and so I could shoot five consecutive weeks which was all I thought I could manage, so I loved that he did that for me. He's just a really sensitive and fair person. Once I read the script, he talked about his style and how he wanted to shoot the film and he sent me a bunch of films from the '70s, you know, these kinds of political thrillers so I could get in the mindset of it all. He's a great man and I loved his work before.
 
Q: What made this project different from other projects you’ve probably been offered before?
 
Naomi Watts: Well, it was nice to be able to go to work and be the support as well. A lot of the films I had done before I was sort of driving them and this was very much Clive driving and me supporting him and I have to say I enjoyed that, especially when you’ve got a newborn.
 
Q: Can you talk a little bit about juggling being a new mom and working on a feature film? Where do you find time to do all the stuff that has to be done?
 
Naomi Watts: It was a struggle and you don't have the foresight particularly the first time around to know how difficult it will be until you're there. In fact, I was still nursing my baby at that point and we were shooting at night in the freezing cold and I wasn't going to have him in the trailer on the set, so I would be expressing milk and sending it back to the hotel and then having to feed him all day the next day when I should be sleeping. So it was hard, it was definitely a challenge.
 
Q: Do you think you will choose different kinds of scripts now that you're a mom?
 
Naomi Watts: I don't know creatively if my choices will change. I think my tastes will always remain the same. I don't know. People asked me a lot last year if I would do “Funny Games” again and my answer to that would be that I had such a huge amount of respect from the director, Michael Haneke, and feel that he's one of the great teachers in cinema, so I really wanted that experience to work with him.  I would hope that when my children grow up and are old enough to see the film, they would understand my reasoning for wanting to do that film. I'm not going to just suddenly start doing kiddie-friendly films. My taste is my taste. But my choices will always be affected by things like when does this shoot, how long for, is the family able to come along, whose turn is it, and stuff like that.
 
Q: What was it about this character that attracted you?
 
Naomi Watts: I liked that she was strong. She was operating in this fast-moving world and was a great bouncing board for her colleague, Salinger, but also trying to balance that with motherhood as well, and I think I definitely relate to that now and hopefully other career mothers will too.
 
Q: Sometimes we think as an actor, you can play the emotions of a mother without necessarily being a mother. Do you find you're looking at mom roles differently now that you are a parent?
 
Naomi Watts: Yes. I mean, I've played mothers for several years now. One of the major parts was “21 Grams” where I lost my children and so your imagination is able to take you there anyway to create that performance, but now definitely that I am a mom there were will be obviously more subtext coming into it. I know so much more now than my imagination would have allowed me.
 
Q: Being a mom, could you do a “Funny Games” again and watch what happens to your son in the film?
 
Naomi Watts: I think I would want that experience with Michael Haneke. I do. Like I said, I would hope that my children would understand that it was me wanting to work with an artist. I think that film is hard. It's really an assault to the system, but what he’s doing is not exploitive and I'm sure it's open to many different opinions here. People have very adverse reactions but my belief is still that what he was doing was a very specific exercise and he wasn't trying to exploit violence at all.
 
Q: Clive said Tom gave him some music to listen to before preparing for scenes. Did he give you any music?
 
Naomi Watts: No, he didn't actually. No, he didn’t give me music. He gave me several films though.

Q: What were they?

Naomi Watts:  “The Conversation,” “All the President's Men,” and “Three Days of the Condor.” I can't remember anything right now. Lactose lobotomy.
 
Q: Did he give you “The Parallax View”?
 
Naomi Watts: No, I don't think so. Or maybe he did. He gave me a bunch and those are the three I can remember right now, but maybe [there were] more. Maybe I did watch that one. I don’t know.
 
Q: You never know what the world will be like when a film comes out. A couple years ago when you were looking at this script for the first time, how far-fetched did it seem that the bank would be the villain?
 
Naomi Watts: Yeah, I know, and here we are.
 
Q: Is there a certain satisfaction about that or did you look at it and say, okay now I really do have to stretch to understand what’s going on there when now it’s front page news?
 
Naomi Watts: I know. It's ironic, isn't it? It's so current and so timely. Yeah.
 
Q: How hard is it to come to a movie that’s already in full swing?
 
Naomi Watts: It's always hard to do that. You feel like a new kid going to school and trying to fit in and you're always worried that they've always got their groove and you've just got your first day jitters. But they made me very welcome and Tom and Clive are very easygoing people and it was good once I got that first day under my belt.
 
Q: Did you watch the dailies to get an idea of what they had already done to get the tone of the movie?
 
Naomi Watts: No, I think I had a good understanding of it, you know, the way Tom described it. I don't even know that I was invited to. No, I didn’t see the dailies.
 
Q: According to the always accurate IMDB, you're going to be doing “King Lear.”
 
Naomi Watts: There was a moment that I was going to and yeah, it's not as updated as it should be. I ended up having to pull out because it would have been right now and shooting in different places again, and with a newborn it wouldn't have worked for me.
 
Q: Are there any other projects that you're thinking about doing?
 
Naomi Watts: Well, “Mother and Child” is the first one and that's just 10 days, so that seemed like I could handle that one, and it's here in Los Angeles and it's a nice break from the cold New York winter and a terrific script and obviously a great director, Rodrigo Garcia. And I do have a few other irons in the fire. I do want to go back to work later in the year, but nothing's concrete yet.
 
Q: What is the character in “Mother and Child”?
 
Naomi Watts: It centers around three different women. Annette Bening plays my mother, which I know seems like a stretch but she had me when she was 14 and she adopted me out, and she's searching for me and I'm looking for her too. And then there's a third character played by Kerry Washington who is trying to have a baby and can't and wants to adopt and we all sort of interrelate.
 
Q: One of the tools in your kit is finding your voice for the character. How comfortably do you slip into an American accent and can you improv in a voice that you’ve come up with?
 
Naomi Watts: No, not very easily. It's very difficult and it takes work. At the beginning of every film, you spend time with the scenes and a dialect coach. Maybe over the years, I feel more confident about it but it still takes doing the work and improvisation is very difficult, but I have had to do it once and that was on that film, “I Heart Huckabees,” because David Russell loves improvisation, and it was sheer terror every day actually for me. (laughs)
 
Q: You were great in that.

Naomi Watts: Oh, thank you.

Q: There are so many stories about the making of that movie.
 
Naomi Watts: (laughs) It was fun and it was an adventure. I had a lot of fun.
 
Q: Back to “21 Grams,” how was it working with Alejandro Inarritu and do you plan to work with any other Mexican directors in the future?
 
Naomi Watts: I would love to. I would love to work with Alfonso Cuaron and I would love to work with Alejandro Inarritu many times. He's actually producing Rodrigo's movie and he was the one that brought “Mother and Child” to me.
 
Q: How is he to work with?
 
Naomi Watts: Pleasant, beyond pleasant. I love the man. We're very, very good friends. We email each other all the time. Let's hope we find something together again.
 
Q:  Sean Penn was just nominated for an Oscar for his role in Milk. What do you think of that? And, have you seen the movie?
 
Naomi Watts: I have. It’s extraordinary. I think he is outstanding. It's hard to believe since he's done such incredible work already, but I do think this is his best performance. It's just a total transformation. I was blown away by him in this movie.
 
Q: Clive mentioned that a lot of research material concerning the banking world came with this script. How much of that did you get and actually read or did you just go in cold?
 
Naomi Watts: Tom gave us a bunch of literature to read, clippings and things of other cases similar to it. And, as you probably know, this is loosely based on a true story that happened so I read up on that stuff. It's mind blowing to think that can go on. Obviously, this is to an extreme level where so many people are involved. It’s so ugly and there are so many links that it's impossible to prove them guilty, but the fact that they're brave enough to go up against it is what makes it interesting as a movie, that two people can make a difference.

Q: Was there anything you learned that was particularly fascinating?

Naomi Watts: You hear about stuff like this. It's all fascinating that one company can cultivate that much power and control that many things and people and operations. It's an ugly thing to learn.
 
Q: How much of a sounding board can you and Liev (Schreiber) be in each other’s careers? Or do you try to leave the career at the door?
 
Naomi Watts: No. We definitely run lines and kind of, not rely on each other, but use each other, like “Can you read this? What do you think?” “I love it, but I'm not sure.” I respect him. He's fiercely intelligent and has great taste and he's unbelievably good at dissecting a script and seeing the problems. I definitely use him as a sounding board and at times he’s had me... Actually I've read everything that he's done in the time that we've been together. So yeah, we're a creative couple that definitely is inspired by one another and so we will call on each other's insight.
 
Q: Is he prepared to become a fanboy icon in the upcoming “X-Men Origins” and are you going to get the Sabretooth action piece for the kids?
 
Naomi Watts: Is he prepared for that? I think he had a lot of fun doing that. We'll see what happens. I think it will be great for our kids, definitely. They'll enjoy that their dad was Sabertooth.
 
Q: Are you both looking for projects to do together?
 
Naomi Watts: Yeah, we would love to. I think, more than anything, I would love for him to direct me in something. I would love to do that.

“The International” opens in theaters on February 13th.