Emily Watson
There are not many actresses who tell Steven Spielberg what to do. And fewer still who would be able to get Hollywood blockbuster shooting
schedules rewritten.
schedules rewritten.
But proud mum Emily Watson wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of seeing her daughter Juliet start her first day at school.
Ironically, Watson had been cast as the proud and protective mother in Spielberg’s latest big Hollywood production, War Horse.
“It is always amazing when you get that call and it’s from Steven Spielberg,” says the London-born actress. “My agent rang and said he is doing War Horse and he wants to meet you.
"It was great to get the part. I had to negotiate on this though. I said, ‘Yes Steven, I will do this, but you have got me down for my first day of shooting on the day my daughter has her first ever day at school.
"I am going to be there and I might not be able to do the film if you don’t let me do that’. He said I could turn up later.”
Family is the primary concern for Emily, 44. She lives in South East London with husband Jack Waters, whom she met at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995, plus Juliet, six, and little Dylan, three.
“I have worked fairly consistently over the years but I have two small children,” she says. “I didn’t move to Hollywood, but by luck, fate or chance, I have stayed on the more edgier independent things.
“Also, they don’t often ask me. I’m a bit mad and bad! When you start out with Lars von Trier then maybe you are not such a safe bet.”
Scene from War Horse
It was the controversial Danish director who cast the relatively unknown actress to star in his 1996 movie Breaking The Waves. The drama made her a star, but Emily firmly kept to offbeat roles in films such as Angela’s Ashes and The Proposition.
But mainstream fare of the likes of Gosford Park and Red Dragon showed she could bring gravitas to more popcorn-hungry stuff.
“I was doing theatre in the beginning,” Emily explains. “I started out as a spear carrier at the Royal Shakespeare Company for two years, understudying.
"Then I had one supporting role at the National before Breaking The Waves. I was signing on the dole when I got the film. I was great to go down
there and sign off. I went to the DSS and they asked, ‘Have you got a job?’ I told them, ‘I’m starring in a movie’.”
there and sign off. I went to the DSS and they asked, ‘Have you got a job?’ I told them, ‘I’m starring in a movie’.”
And now, after living out of a suitcase and going round the world for years, it is her home and family that is the draw for Emily.
“I spent a long time travelling to where the work is,” she says, “and on amazing adventures all round the world. Then when you have kids it becomes logistically challenging. You can’t say, ‘I am going up the Himalayas, see you in three months’.”
In War Horse, Emily plays the wife of a drunken Devon farmer who nearly loses everything to their nasty landlord after paying too much for a foal at auction. Her son, and the horse, then go off to fight in the First World War.
The landlord, played by David Thewlis, has his eyes both on their farm and on Emily’s character Rose Narracott.
“He is a nasty piece of work,” she explains. “He’s trying to exploit the weakness of her husband and that makes her fight, to become a tigress to stop that happening.
“The husband has previously been through a war... he’s seen the incredibly damaging place that his son then has to go to. Rose has understood that and protects him, even though he is a complete idiot and has gambled away nearly everthing. She still protects him because she remembers why he is so wonderful.”
Despite it being a large Tinseltown production with a huge cast, Spielberg cared for the performances above all else.
“You are on a big Hollywood film,” Emily smiles, “and you have equipment many directors would die to have for a day just sitting around all the time.
"And his crew are so quick. They have all been doing it together for a couple of decades now. They really turn on a sixpence and are very dextrous and very quiet.
"There isn’t a great deal of shouting. So you can go from major set-up to major set-up in a very short space of time. But as an actor it feels very intimate and he focuses on performance.”
Because Emily was new to film when she got her big break, she took extra time with Jeremy Irvine, the 20-year-old actor plucked from nowhere to be her son.
“I think Jeremy has got everything it takes,” she says. “He has real talent, he is beautiful, he is charming and personable, and the camera loves him.
"But he also has an integrity and a desire to be a good actor. I have worked with young actors who want to be on the cover of magazines who check themselves out in the mirror before every take. He is the opposite of that and that is a good start.”
● War Horse is out today.
No comments:
Post a Comment