Naomi Watts Reclaims the Spotlight: “I Know What Failure Feels Like. It’s Not That Bad” (2024)

Naomi Watts admits that there are times when her husband, Billy Crudup, wonders whether she’s got too many things going on. “He says that I’m crazy and trying to do too much often,” she says. “He’s much more focused and does brilliantly because of it. I am a bit scatty at times, but it’s just part of my DNA.”

She’s talking about her prolific career, but she shows me her left hand, which is wrapped in several layers of bandaging after she badly burned herself at her son’s birthday party—evidence that the juggling extends to her personal life, too. “It was a windy night, and I wanted to bring the cake down to him and his friends, and the candles would’ve gone out, so I lit a bunch of sparklers and they exploded in my hand. My son never got his cake,” she says dryly. “So yeah, trying to do too many things all at once is a fruitless endeavor.”

In life and work, the 55-year-old Watts keeps busy; she doesn’t know any other way. After breaking out with explosive performances in the arthouse dramas Mulholland Drive and 21 Grams (the latter of which earned her an Oscar nomination), Watts emerged as a darling of daring filmmakers, leading movies by Peter Jackson (King Kong), David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises), and Michael Haneke (Funny Games). Her pace only accelerated from there, even if the road got bumpier. From 2013 to 2019, she appeared in at least two movies per year, some of which were harshly received by critics. The last few years have told a similar story.

But this appears to be the year that Watts’s eagerness to take big—and frequent—swings has paid off. In January, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans earned the Australian star raves all the way through the summer, with her delicate, shattering turn as the socialite Babe Paley resulting in her first Emmy nomination (for outstanding lead actress in a limited series). This fall will showcase her thrilling return to auteur cinema. She’s got a small but enticing part in Emmanuelle, the erotic drama helmed by French director Audrey Diwan (Happening), and she’s the lead in The Friend, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s lovely adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s prize-winning novel about a novelist who takes in the great dane left behind by her mentor who died by suicide (Bill Murray). Confirmed to screen at the Toronto and New York film festivals, The Friend will remind you of what Watts can do when she’s given a movie all her own, as she swirls through the intense motions of grief, betrayal—and pet-rearing.

At one point during our conversation, I ask Watts what other directors are on her list now. She thinks for a moment, and names a few: Yorgos Lanthimos, Alexander Payne, Paul Thomas Anderson. Within 24 hours, she sends along a much longer list: Emerald Fennell, Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, Sarah Polley, Todd Haynes, Pedro Almodóvar, Pablo Larraín, Jonathan Glazer. So yeah, she’s not slowing down. Judging by this year’s work, why should she?

Vanity Fair: I’d loved the book of The Friend and was so curious to see how they’d adapt it, because it’s a very internal novel. The movie is more accessible, but that complexity is still there, I think, in how you play her.

Naomi Watts: But that dog, my God! He’s so cinematic.

Can you talk about acting with the dog?

Yes. We all know the laws of our industry, be careful with animals and children. It makes everything far more complicated, far more costly—everything just is much more difficult. But that dog was extraordinary in that he went way beyond what was there on the page. Sometimes I thought, when I was turning these pages, “Good luck.” There was no way I thought they could pull these things off. Not only would he get it right away, but he’d give a little bit more, so then we’d push him to do something that wasn’t on the page.

I am an animal lover, and so I was not afraid to get the slobber all over me, the fur. It took weeks of training in the lead-up for us to get familiar, and he’s very strong. We’re walking around the streets of New York with plenty of traffic and people were rushing up to him like he was Mick Jagger or something.

How does that movie fit into the kinds of scripts coming your way of late? You also have the Audrey Diwan remake of Emmanuelle premiering soon, and of course started off the year with Feud.

It’s not easy to say exactly what it is, although I like to think that my choices are very intentional. If there’s any repetitive themes throughout my work, I would say grief is a central theme, and I think that’s because I’m always trying to figure out grief myself. Through my work, I access some of my life’s work, which is to understand why my dad left at such an early age, because that’s just part of who I am. It informs almost everything I do. But I also, as I get older, want to change it up. And when you mention those lists of things, it does sound like, “Whoop, I have done a swivel lately!”

I’m definitely interested in women at this stage in their lives and how much we reject the idea that we should become invisible or where we should sit on the sidelines. No, that’s not me. I don’t feel like my energy has run out at all. I feel like I’ve got plenty to do, plenty to say. I love that Ryan [Murphy] leans into that.

You’ve become a regular member of his company, between The Watcher, Feud, and the upcoming legal drama All’s Fair with Kim Kardashian. When he first cast you, did you sense something longer-term was happening?

I didn’t predict that, no. We did The Watcher, and I had a good experience with him. Chatted here and there, went out to dinner, and he told me that he had the rights to the book [Laurence Leamer’s Capote’s Women] and he wanted me to be involved. And I said, “Fantastic!” Like I did with The Watcher, I said yes without having read anything.

Feud was one of the most fun experiences of my career—definitely in the latter part of my career, this is the most fun I’ve had. It’s so rare that everything lines up, performances, writing, filmmaking, and then everything can be well executed. But does the audience receive it? Do the critics like it? And it just seemed that everything along from beginning to end, soup to nuts, was in good alignment.

With many Emmy nominations to show for it.

Yes, and that’s my first as well. I’ve never had one, so I was pretty chuffed.

How do you deal with critics, generally? Do you follow how they respond to your projects?

I don’t like to read reviews, but when something is good, people send you little bits—which means if you don’t get sent those little bits, you know something’s off. [Laughs] We can be masoch*stic and I’ve definitely been guilty of it in the past and read bad things. They do hurt. They really become quite painful because you put blood, sweat, and tears into it, and you’re obviously aiming as high as possible. To have it be rejected is truly painful. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely gotten more disciplined about not worrying too much about that.

Before Feud, you’d made some films that met a more muted response, like Penguin Bloom or The Desperate Hour. How did you receive feedback in that period? Was it frustrating?

Yeah. With Penguin Bloom, I definitely read a lot of stuff because I developed that from the ground up, and I was very involved every step of the way. So that was upsetting. It was really upsetting because I also became very, very close with the family, and it was my job to make their story work. When the critics were harsh on it, I felt really bad. You feel like you’ve let them down. But again, I have to get myself to the understanding that it’s so rare for something to actually work. If I look back at my IMDB, I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve had at least five films in the span of a 30-year career that have had really great recognition. And to expect or think that there’s any more than that, it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s so unusual. So I’m fully in touch with the fact that things will most likely not succeed.

What was the other one you mentioned?

The Desperate Hour.

Oh, yeah, that didn’t quite work. That was a very, very ambitious film to attempt. I don’t remember reading the reviews, but it was clear to me through other people that it didn’t critically work.

You’ve also talked about staying ambitious yourself, even if that’s not as common a topic to discuss openly for women. Do you connect that at all to this period of work?

Men can talk about ambition comfortably, but it’s considered somehow not a good thing for a woman to have that. I don’t agree with it, and I don’t know why that’s the case. Why shouldn’t it be the same for women? I do remember in Australia, when I was young and starting out, it was definitely a dirty word. “You’re dressing up for an audition? You’re practicing that much for an audition?” A little bit of the tall poppy syndrome.

I have energy, I have drive, I have ideas, and I do feel like, yes, I’m getting older. I’m 55, and this is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. But at the same time, as you get older, you are very aware of those years—the best years or the most years—being behind you, and so you kind of speed up towards the finish line. You get this, “Oh, but I want to check this off the list, and I want to check that off the list. And there’s so many things I still am capable of doing. Why don’t I try?” You become less worried about failure. I don’t want to be accused of throwing spaghetti at the wall. I do get energized by the fact that I could try it. I know what failure feels like. It’s not that bad. You could pick yourself up and you try something else.

It’s a healthy way of thinking.

I’ve always been like that. I was raised by my grandmother. If we were caught sitting down with a book in our hand, we’d be told to get up and do something. We lived on a farm, and there were things to do: clean out the goat pen, clean the chickens, get the eggs, feed the animals. I always felt like I had to be doing something. I’m a doer.

If I look at your 2024 and the projects we’re talking about, it seems like a really exciting way to work, when it all starts to click.

Yes. I do feel overwhelmed, though. I’m definitely enjoying the variation of different things going on, but I need to slow down a bit and not lose focus and spreading myself thin.

Does that change the way you show up on set? Juggling raising kids, taking on an intensive role, knowing you’ve got other projects going on at the same time—Emmanuelle, for example, shot in Paris and Hong Kong, correct?

You do have to get a little bit more compartmentalized about it. This is the work hour, and this is the kids’ hour, this is not letting things cross over too much. That requires discipline and practice. Shooting Emmanuelle was 11 days with travel and everything. I was overseas, away from the kids—but the kids are in between two homes, so it was workable. I had to learn Cantonese for that film, which was freaking hard because none of those sounds are ones I’m used to hearing or saying. It’s not just the words, it’s the sing-song and the rhythm. So that took a lot of work, even though it was just a handful of scenes. I just give myself over to prep, and I make sure that on the day I’m ready and 100% focused, 1,000% focused if I can be.

To your point about The Desperate Hour not really working, is that something you ever feel while making a movie?

No, you never ever know. You know when it’s definitely not going to work, but you never know if it’s going to work. Mulholland Drive is a perfect example. I was directed in such a way with David Lynch, where he was having me do it over and over again and saying, “More excitement! You’re so happy to be there! It’s like eating ice cream the first time ever!” I was coming down that escalator in Mulholland Drive and riding around Los Angeles and he was like, “More, Naomi, more.” I did more, then, “More, Naomi, more!” I felt like this was going to be the worst thing ever to hit the screen. How could an adult person be that excited? It just didn’t feel right. And of course, he knew what he was doing, and I had to just trust his vision and throw myself into it.

That has to be a pretty formative experience, right? It’s your first big role, you’re going for broke, and it pays off.

Yeah, I tend to trust most of the time now, at least at the beginning part of filmmaking. [Laughs]

How did you feel when you first saw it?

I do remember David showing me the film for the first time in his screening room, and I was pretty blown away. But I was still afraid that I was over-acting in a crazy way. Even watching it, I was like, “That’s too much. Are people going to get this?”

More recently, you’ve been very open about aging in Hollywood and going through menopause. At one point you said, “I know I’m talking about this, and if it spooks people, so be it.” Did it spook people?

Less than it made people kind of alert and interested. I was spooking myself. The anticipation of getting close to actually having that conversation with people in my industry, I was very, very scared. But once you own something, it diffuses the awkwardness…. There’s been some great work. I mean, even playing a horny therapist in the show Gypsy. Did the show work? I mean, the fans loved it, but not everyone loved it. It didn’t continue on, but that was a highly sexual leading lady role who was well into her 40s. I’ve had other great roles. Babe Paley is up there with Mulholland Drive and 21 Grams and The Impossible. I hope that just continues. Being in the hands of Ryan Murphy, I’m definitely bettering my odds because he seems to be up for telling stories of women at every age. I feel very heartened.

You’re credited as an EP on the shows you’ve worked on with him. Is that important to you now?

It’s just very generous of him. His world is like a well-oiled machine, in how he hires actors over and over again. He does the same with his Head of Departments, and everyone knows how to work well together as a team. So while he’s giving me a voice and a credit in the mix, it’s not like I’m coming in going, “Ryan, I see it differently.” It’s very, very well-thought-out, and I’m happy to be a contributor. Certainly he asks me often about how I feel about a scene or the casting of somebody or other things like that, we consult, but it’s definitely Ryan’s World in a good way. I’m so happy to trust him because he’s more than proved himself.

Do you keep in touch with directors from earlier in your career, like David?

Oh, yeah. David—we text all the time. If ever I’m in Los Angeles, I go up there and have a coffee with him. And Alejandro [G. Iñárritu], I text with—Juan Antonio [Bayona], I text with. I see less of them maybe once every few years at one of those kinds of functions.

David recently shared news of his emphysema diagnosis, which resulted in a real outpouring of love from the community. Did the news hit you in any particular way?

Yeah, of course. I’ve watched him over the years, and he just always loved to live his life his way. He’s not going to let anyone tell him how to live. And he’s still got his humor intact. I’m going to actually reach out to him after our chat because now you’re making me realize I should. It’s been a few weeks.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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