Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises
Peter Mountain/Courtesy of Focus Features
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How did you find working with Viggo Mortensen?
Viggo blew me away on a daily basis. He's spent time in Russia and learned the language, and every day he would come to set with something interesting, a piece of writing or a Russian chocolate or he'd show me this photo album — he was so well versed in everything about the Russian culture, and, really, I think he stayed in character pretty much the whole time. And that's great. I mean, it helps you.
Learning Russian changed the way his face moved apparently.
Yes, very dedicated, very committed to it, and I think it helps him, and it helps others. I saw Viggo in the lobby last night, and it was like a whole different person. I almost didn't recognise him. It was inspiring working with him.
Did you find yourself swapping Peter Jackson stories with each other?
We did actually! Well, let's face it, it was a large slice of our lives that we spent — him more than me — but we both love Peter and his wife Fran, and so we were happy to walk down memory lane of their world and Wellington, where we shot.
You found out you were pregnant three weeks into the shoot. Did that feed into your performance at all?
Yeah, it certainly created greater meaning for me, you know, holding the baby, and all the things I read on midwifery, and the research I did, like going to the hospital and watching some births. I saw a C-section…
Did that scare you?
Yes! I didn't know I was pregnant at that time, though. But I do remember thinking, "Whoa, that's intense." It's quite a brutal surgery.
You were here in Toronto three years ago with 21 Grams, and you spoke then about what a long, hard slog it was to get your career going and how you desperately wanted to keep the momentum going once you had it. How do you feel now?
I'm much less attached now to my career, and that came probably not just with the baby, but with meeting Liev. That was the point where it changed. Not because of him, but I just feel like, "I'm gonna slow down a little bit." I think because I'd taken 10 years to get to Mulholland Drive, and I was on such a mission to hold onto that and keep the momentum, and then I realised I can pull back a bit and relax and enjoy other things, too. And now having a baby, I think it'll definitely put a new perspective on it. I'll probably just want to work once a year or something.
Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises
Peter Mountain/Courtesy of Focus Features
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What's the most difficult role you've ever prepared for?
21 Grams. I wonder actually playing that role now — now that I am a mother, because I wasn't a mum then and playing a character where you lose two children… I mean, obviously your imagination can work very hard and the research I did in that was sitting in rooms full of people who had lost their children. It was just really hard, and you felt very invasive. You know, I'm just an actor playing this role, and here I am watching these people grieve.
So beyond wanting to work less, does becoming a mother change your outlook on your career? Are you looking at taking different roles now?
Well, I'm still new at being a mother; I'm six weeks into it. But obviously it's going to change things from a scheduling point of view, like, "How long is this shooting? Where is it shooting? When is Liev shooting and how do we make that work?" But in terms of the content of the films I'm doing, I don't think so. I mean, maybe I'll want to do a kid's movie for my son to impress his friends down the line, but right now, what interested me before is still interesting to me now.
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