Emily Watson grew up in a cultlike organization.
Acting became her way out of it.
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Its like youre a really well-tuned engine, she says.
Its great to have the opportunity just tovroom, vroom, vroom.
Shell also star in HBOsDune: Prophecy, a prequel series spun off the Denis Villeneuve films.
The characters resonate with Watsons own life.
I wanted, I guess, to hold myself together as a person, she says.
Youre not someone who has done much science fiction or this kind of franchise project.
ThenAlison Schapkercame on and it just took on a life.
Our overt motive is to set the universe on a good path in an era 10,000 years B.C.
What an opportunity getting to play someone who is steely and strong and manipulative and just bad, basically.
And, also, to work with Olivia Williams.
We go back decades.
We were at the Royal Shakespeare Company at the same time.
These women were powerful but also paranoid.
Thats whatDuneis: Its about oil, really who controls the energy.
In a 2020HBO miniseries,The Third Day, you played a cult leader.
For that role, you drew on your experiences with the School of Economic Science.
Its in my wheelhouse, really.
Yes, I was feeling the sense of young lives being controlled and a sense of appropriation.
People end up in those places because they have a kind of damage.
That was my way into it.
I thought,I grew up with people who had that kind of presence.
But then we were encouraged to become mothers, nurses, and teachers.
Independence was frowned upon.
Needless to say, I wasnt a very good student and did none of the above.
I was, in part, protected from it because my parents were removed from it emotionally.
We were a very strong unit as a family.
The whole thing started back in the 40s.
My dad joined when he was 18, so I think in the late 50s.
There are still things Im grateful for, but there were a lot of things that were not right.
All of us were desperate to be normal kids.
We felt like we were on the outside looking in because we went to this strange setup.
Im also able to concentrate, to really hyperfocus.
Ive got one of those slightly odd brains, possibly because I learned to concentrate out of fear.
Fear of punishment?Yes, or just survival.
Doing your utter best meant being okay.
You read a lot of classical spiritual texts and performed things like Shakespeare as part of the SESs schooling.
Youre always investigating human nature.
It makes you feel very alive.
I did a bit of acting at school, and we did Shakespeare.
I appeared inMuch Ado About Nothing.
My first professional job was at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
It felt like,Heres the path.
This is where you could go.
What was your time in the RSC like?
I think Olivia and I met probably in the pub.
There was a whole circle of friends that were all at Cambridge together.
My husband, Jack Waters, was at Cambridge with her and Sam Mendes and Tom Hollander.
Theyve all gone into the industry in various ways, and were always encountering them.
He went, Wheres the finger?!
Though he was really sweet about it, actually.
Before I got my first job, I was sharing a house with Mark Ravenhill, the playwright.
Wed been at university together.
I said, Id like to get a job at the RSC.
He said, Id like to have a play on the West End.
Both happened pretty quickly.
Then, lo and behold …
Your life was very much under scrutiny and discussed what you were doing and why you were doing it.
When I told them what I was doing, they told me I wasnt allowed to do it.
I said, Well, Im going to do it anyway.
They told me to go on my undignified way.
It was a very uncomfortable meeting.
I was demoted, as it were.
After that, it took me a while to finally extricate myself.
From what I understand, the cast ofBreaking the Wavesknew nothing about this at the time.
You didnt tell Stellan Skarsgard about it for decades.I was frozen in turmoil ofWhat does it mean?
What have I done?
Will I survive?It took me years to talk about it.
It was very painful.
My husband was amazing.
He was, when I was still part of it, very accepting.
Then when it all went down, he was just like, I got you.
They were actually very supportive, but they were still loyal to it all, so it wasnt easy.
I was young and probably immature as well.
Over time, we came to find ways to talk about it and resolve things.
What was that like to experience?Of course, it was amazing.
You have to surrender your individuality and serve.When suddenly everyone is looking at you …
I froze.It was like being on two parallel tracks.
Thats taken me a long time to be honest about.
The publicist knocked on my door saying, Lars has decided not to come.
He was at the time suffering from intense travelphobia.
They knew, more than I did, what an intense thing it was going to be.
Its a hit like nothing else, really.
Breaking the Wavesis sexually explicit.
Youre nude on-camera, and Bess is performing these acts with men around the village.
But the experience itself wasnt exploitative.
I felt very looked after.
It was a gift.
It changed my life, and I felt very loved and alive.
It didnt make me feel diminished in any way.
For a while, I was like,Well, she comes from a different world.
But my experience was not that.
AfterBreaking the Waves, you suddenly get the attention of Hollywood with the Oscar nomination at 29.
I also had a great agent.
Shes still my agent.
It was lots of spandex.
Then it was just preposterous.
When youre suddenly hot, things come your way that are just … Really?
Was there an intention to that?I dont think I had a plan.
It was just like, Oh, really?
Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day-Lewis!
I was just rolling with what came, with what landed on my mat.
Literally, scripts used to come sliding under your door in those days.
What was it like to act opposite Daniel Day-Lewis?
Hes someone who approaches his roles very intentionally.
But he is so amazing, and what he does is so powerful and intense.
I dont think I could do it that way, but theres a purity of intention thats incredibly effective.
I felt defensive then, because it is true that artists have very messy lives.
The filmmakers were very sincere in what they were trying to do and came from a documentary background.
Paul was Roberts stand-in director onA Prairie Home Companionbecause he had to have one for insurance.
Nobody knew it then, but inGosfordit was Stephen Frears.
And that was a joyous, amazing job.
It was a whos who of the British theater.
I remember Altman saying, Ah, you get that many egos in a room and they police themselves.
Any time there was any sort of problem, hed say, Im going to go lie down.
Just wake me up when its fixed.
Hed turn up on a Monday morning, barely able to walk, looking terrible.
Everybody was going, Is he dying?
It was just that hed smoked so much weed over the weekend.
Then I turned up late from that toGosford Park.
We did one in sunlight and one in cloud, and he said, I think Ive got it.
Altman said, Im not really interested in what you do when youve worked it out.
And I hadnt nailed it!
He said, I think we got it.
I begged him for one more take, which was this big reset.
And thats the one in the movie!
I said, Maggie, help me, and she was really sweet, making suggestions.
It wasnt a conscious interjection.
It was as if youre chatting away with all these people in your head.
How did he first approach you?I was staying at the Chateau Marmont doing press for something.
He asked if we could meet, and we went to his favorite diner in the Valley.
He said he was interested in making a 90-minute romantic comedy.
What did he mean by that?It was more that he wanted me to be in the present.
So that was his way of doing it.
This character wasnt really a real person; she was a kind of cipher, an alien.
Her name is Lena, which means light.
Shes just a light going on.
When I eventually answer the phone, all the lights go on.
Its a really lovely moment.
There was a sense of folding life into the making of it, allowing yourself to be infected.
At a certain point, you started turning more to television.
I was sort of not necessarily expecting it to work out.
But your life expectancy on television is much higher than it is on film.
Theyve gotten fatter at least for me, anyway.
I found a good place to land.
My agent sent this script aboutFred and Rose West.I said, I dont think so.
She said, Read it.
It was fascinating and really different.
The whole subject had been a feeding frenzy for the tabloid press.
This was a completely different way of looking at it, based on verbatim testimony.
It was my first time working in television, and the pace of it was new.
We would do 11 pages a day of them sitting down talking.
It was actually more like my first experience withBreaking the Wavesbecause there wasnt any sitting around.
We just went and went.
For instance, you werent in aHarry Pottermovie.I was asked.
Are there genres you just arent interested in?I dont know.
Your other big role this year, inSmall Things Like These, is a little likeDune: Prophecy.
You play a Mother Superior controlling this community.Im finding myself playing these very powerful, controlling women.
I want really, properly Irish people.
I didnt know him before, but Ive admired him as an actor for a long time.
But then he had a dream that I played this part.
So he sent it to me.
It is quite an honor to be Irish enough for Cillian Murphy.Yeah, it is.
It was one day on set,that scene.Theres no overt reference to anything.
When I read it, I knew I wanted to have a go at it.
I think I was remembering how little people need to do to control you with fear.
Ive been in situations like that.
Theres a rapturously euphoric moment thats in the bookSmall Things Like Thesewhen he goes, Fuck it.
Zhao is another idiosyncratic director whos done work with nonprofessional actors and a big Marvel movie.
Everything else is happening too, but shes, like, in another element.
How the film comes out, I dont know, but it was amazing.
She asked for me.
Thats how we met.
At the end of our conversation, I said, What are you doing now?
And she said, Chernobyl.
Its a trust thing, and she has it in spades.
But as times gone by, Ive seen her doing things and thought,Jessie, look after yourself.
Because what youre doing is so huge, youve got to take care.
When youre coming off a job after all that time, youre coming off an adrenaline high.
You have to be careful where that lands you.
Im very lucky I have a partner who was an actor and is acutely aware of that realm.
Im like, Im fine, Im fine, Im fine.
But he goes, Emily, youre not fine.
Hes been there for me in that way from the beginning all the way through.
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