'Eastern Promises' Q&A: Naomi Watts
The determined, achievement-minded actress — and new mom — hands baby Alexander to the nanny to discuss her role as a gentle midwife.
By Matt Mueller
Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises
Peter Mountain/Courtesy of Focus Features
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In David Cronenberg's crime thriller Eastern Promises, Naomi Watts takes on the role of Anna, a deceptively timid hospital midwife who, while trying to deal with her own personal tragedy, finds herself swept dangerously close to a sinister, unseen world of Russian gangsters and teenage sex slavery in London when a pregnant 14-year-old prostitute dies during her shift. Anna uses the girl's devastating diary to attempt to trace the surviving infant's relatives back to Russia, but finds the trail leading straight to Viggo Mortensen's enigmatic, heavily tattooed "driver," Nikolai, and the ruthless gangsters he serves, kingpin Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his unruly son Kirill (Vincent Cassel).
The 39-year-old actress found out she was pregnant three weeks into the shoot with partner Liev Schreiber's baby, with the couple since having a son. Only six weeks after Alexander Pete's arrival, Watts sits down with Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival to talk Eastern Promises, violence in movies, and how motherhood will affect her career.
Now that you've had a chance to see the film, did you find yourself shocked by any of the violence?
It's intense, definitely. It always read as a tough movie. And, yeah, some of the scenes — that I obviously was nowhere near on the filming schedule — surprised me. But David always makes it truthful.
Do you find the violence in a David Cronenberg film different from violence in other movies you've made?
I haven't really done a lot of movies with violence. I'm always interested in darker stuff, definitely, but it's usually about emotional darkness.
How would you compare the violence in Eastern Promises, then, to other violent movies you've seen?
What was most ironic was I made this film just before I did Eastern Promises called Funny Games, which is the American version of the Austrian film. [Funny Games director] Michael Haneke is really addressing violence in quite a specific way, and he's trying to speak to the audience, and he's really poo-pooing violence and any movie that glorifies it or makes it look cool or funny or sexy. So I've got two movies that are contradicting each other in a way. But I think David's violence is connecting with the truth. He makes it very textured and real so it doesn't feel gratuitous, although there's an abundance of it.
Apparently David Cronenberg gives you a lot of freedom on set, in terms of not telling you exactly what to do in a scene.
The great thing about David is that he's done it for a long time now, and he just exudes confidence on the set. He doesn't really say much at all to begin with. He says, "Let's just try it" and then, often, "Okay, let's go again." And I thought, "Well, okay, he just knows what he's doing and what he's looking for and if it's there, it's there." Obviously the body of work before him shows that he has got immense style, and if he's seeing what he likes, then he doesn't need to thrash it around and say, "Let's try it seven different other ways." I liked that. It kept the energy consistent.
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