Naomi Watts has a new interview and photospread with Net-a-Porter magazine. For a magazine from a shopping site especially, they always kill it with their in depth profiles and beautiful fashion editorials. Naomi’s photos feature her decked out in white and cream-colored clothing, looking fresh and ethereal. She gives a lot of good quotes too, and I left out some below so I would suggest you read the article if you’re a fan like me. She said that her kids don’t watch her movies because she let her youngest watch a clip from King Kong and he freaked out thinking she was in danger. I don’t think most of her films are appropriate for little kids anyway, her movies can be dark. She also explained that she prefers it that way and that she likes those type of roles. Here are some other things she told Net-a-Porter:
On why she stuck with acting despite setbacks
I tried to find a way to extricate myself many times, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t let it go. Firstly because I knew I loved it, and I knew deep down that I did have something, even though I was being told that I had nothing.On the roles changing to reflect her age
The longer the life, the richer it gets, and the [movie] roles generally reflect that. Mid-forties, you’ve accumulated a fair amount of experiences – tragedies, good things, bad things, divorce, loss, things like that – and those make for good stories to tell. Although, your kids start getting older and older and older in movies to the point that it’s like, please! But, hey, that is the industry that we live and work in, and I am not going to get caught up in getting bitter about that.On the wage gap and female filmmakers
There are films I’ve worked on where I’ve been asked to work at such a low fee when I know the leading man is working at a proper-sized fee, and it’s really upsetting. I went through 10 years without working with female filmmakers, and the good news is that lately I have worked with quite a few… Voices are being heard.Her friendship with Nicole Kidman
We’re busy people that live in different places. The thing about Nic and I is that we have so many years of history now, that even after big gaps, we just take up where we left off. We know we have limited time together, so we go strong; we cover big topics in a really limited amount of time. It’s just like, boom, we’re back.On her family with Liev Schreiber
It’s all constant negotiation and seeing how things go. [We are inspired] inspired by each other, and I think there’s great respect for one another’s work. He’s got major [acting] chops and he’s incredibly bright and funny. I just love his mind.
As far as the wage gap, can you imagine being told that the film is being made on a shoestring and “would you just do us this favor?” (I’m assuming that’s how it goes) and then learning that the man you’re playing opposite is getting a huge salary? I bet that happens all the time and that actresses haven’t talked about it due to legitimate fear of being blacklisted. At least it’s finally a conversation.
When Watts mentioned divorce as a life experience in her mid 40s my spidey sense started tingling, but I checked her IMDB and she’s playing a single mom in The Life of Henry (also starring 9 year-old cutie Jacob Tremblay) so she’s likely talking about a recent role. Watts has been busy. She’s of course currently promoting her role in the third Divergent movie, Allegiant, but I’m going to give it a pass until it hits cable. It’s got a miserable 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. It will make bank anyway, those movies always do, but this one seems to have suffered some from word of mouth. It “only” made $29 million this weekend, down about 44% from the opening weekends of the other two films.
I liked her comment about her friendship with Kidman. Those are the best kinds of friends-the ones you don’t see for a few months, and then when you see each other it’s ‘bam!’ Like you’ve never been apart.
I live far away from my best friend so I can really relate to that a lot.
29M sound a lot. But it is a lot down from the previous films that did not make much profit even if they did do profit. You have to remember the budget, that the theathers get something between a third and a half of the films grosses (in China studios get 25%) and the marketing costs. The DVD sales after theather run are not what they used to be either. So the film could loose money and the final film (despite the name the film was not the final film of the series the last book was split in two) might not get made.
Allegiant was the worst book of the series and ticked off a number of fans… Including myself. And not in a Mockingjay ticked off way… As in, a I would never read the author again kind of way. So that might explain the dip — fans didn’t want to come out to see the crap ending.
In any event, I’m glad more actresses are talking about this. It happens across the board in many industries. Just the other day, a man at my job tried to explain why entry level men get paid more than entry level women at my job with the same degree (tech skills being valued more than pedagogical skills). It was infuriating. The more women who shed light on it the better. Being an actress making millions doesn’t make the message any dimmer IMO.
I think the series was just a cheap copy of the Hunger Games. I enjoyed the first book and film, but then it just got really bad.
The wage gap story is taking on a different meaning. It is not possible for every actress to be paid the same as the male in every film. Anymore than it is possible for the male to be paid the same as the female. It all depends on the Actor and Actress. Naomi Watts to my knowledge has never really opened a film that was marketed on her name alone. She had one of her biggest success in The Ring.. but honestly that film could have starred a lot of different people and would have been a hit. People didn’t go to see her IMO. There are many male actors that have worked on movies for little money to get the film made that is not an unusual request. I think it should be equal money for equal work; but in films that can be different. If you were an actor and you know that your name can bring people to the theater Domestically or Internationally then how is it fair that the actress playing next to you who has never in her career headlined a film to BO success should get the same salary as you. Would say LeBron get paid the same as everyone on the court. NO ..
I think if you have a female actress that has had big BO success on the back of her name then yes she should complain about getting less money. But most of the women that are talking about this now have not had that BO hit.. If they found that some unknown actor was getting more then that would piss me off too.
I just think this is a debate that has many angles.
Weak sauce. There aren’t many angles to the tradition of underpaying women.
I’m not talking about underpaying women as the only part. I’m talking about that in entertainment the argument has different parts.
I am well aware that women in every field are underpaid and not treated fairly. It is a fight that more women should be vocal about. My point is in movies there are other factors that are looked at. So no not weak sauce. Just a different view of parts of this issue.
@Lisa2
The actresses central argument is that the market has conspired to keep the wages low DESPITE these factors. Opening a film and positively influencing ticket sales are two different things. Sure the actor who can open a film gets more but what we now know is that male actors who have no evidence of opening films still get higher offers than women who have. Now if Naomis presence in a film does not positively affect ticket sales then why would she be contractually required to market it too?
There is a straight up studio conspiracy to ignore the actual value of the actress in order to keep wage costs low across the board for women. The studios benefit, the general public reverts to the “spoiled rich woman” trope and the actresses are left fighting over scraps.
I think the way Naya has explained the argument is probably how an actress should frame what they’re up against. However, I don’t think any of them have, and I don’t think any of them have articulated the issue as well as Naya has. Maybe they don’t have the vocabulary to explain the issue well, or maybe, more likely, they don’t want to step up on anybody’s toes, but even the “smart” ones haven’t articulated the issue in quite that way. Even Jennifer Lawrence talked more about social conditioning in her essay than anything else.
There’s always a reason to underpay a woman, it’s never the same for men.
I get what you are trying to say, lisa2, but I’m not sure that your argument is all that applicable to Naomi’s situation. She’s mostly a character actress, not a Movie Star with multiple franchises and blockbuster box office hits under her belt. Assuming that the movies she talked about in the interview were character-driven films that are not expected to make much money anyway and that she, as the female lead, was still paid less than the male lead, then I think it’s fair to say that there are no angles to the debate in this particular scenario.
Naomi has a quote, her asking price, which is probably in line with industry standards. She feels angry because she is expected to take a pay cut when her male co-workers aren’t asked.
I agree. It’s easier for me to understand how a wage gap should be worked out for engineers or executives or teachers or a star like Jennifer Lawrence or Sandra Bullock (definitely her!), but for actresses like Naomi Watts who are not known to bring in numbers I’m not sure what to think about putting them in the same category of pay as an A-list male actor known for box office, who might be in the kinds of films, given the potential for exposure, actresses of her intangible status might lobby to get paired with.
I do think giving her a high salary equal or higher to her co-star makes sense if she gets paired with someone like Chuck Bass though (I’m not sure if that’s ever happened). She most likely would have and should have been paid than her co-star in that dreadful Diana movie, but of course that movie tanked and the money spent on everybody in that film was probably a waste.
I also realize it’s easier for a male actor to achieve box-office success when they’re given more chances, but even the male equivalent of Naomi Watts probably wouldn’t register to me as highly successful in terms of marketing. The male equivalent of her most likely isn’t a Tom Cruise or Leo DiCaprio or Will Smith. He’d probably be quiet British actor X who does small films to supplement his income and then returns to the stage in London or something.
I think the problem with working out ANY actor’s fee, whether male or female, is that you don’t really know if any of them were really worth the price they negotiated for until after the movie comes out. Even a known quantity like Brad Pitt can wind up having a dud.
There are a lot of factors that play into an actor’s fee, but I don’t think that’s exactly what is being discussed here. I think in the situation(s) Naomi is talking about, she’s saying she was offered much less than her standard rate while the leading man was paid his rate with no problem, not that the rates must be completely the same. They’re paying him what he asks, and trying to lowball her. And that’s not fair.
It’s opportunity and investment. There is not the same level of investment, time and money in female driven movies. If 1000 movies are made every year with male driven stories and 100 make money, then we say oh people only want to see male stars. If 20 movies are made every year with female stars and one of them is successful, we say oh wow what an unrepeatable fluke but look at those other 19 films that failed, see, women can’t drive box office sales. That’s the reality.
It’s not really relevant, that she’s paid less than a bigger male draw, in the context she is giving. That context is that she is paid a hugely discounted rate because it’s a passion movie, on a shoestring, blah blah blah, and then she learns her male opposite is being paid standard movie star rates. So they risk a cheeky manipulative low-ball on women lead actors, and pay the going rate on male. And Watts baldly states that this is very common for women, in an industry where big studio movies are rarer than small indie productions. It’s going to be assumed that the women will take derisory offers, because they are always paid less, no matter the level or the movie size, so the risk that they will be too offended to continue to negotiate isn’t present as it is with the men – instead, the risk is implicit that she feels if she says no, then the role will go (and that is probably truer for women, too, because the number of parts is so much smaller).
It is that attitude she is critiquing, and obviously she is correct to do so.
And I have to say, whatever anyone wants to say about Jennifer Lawrence from now on she realised she had a fairly unique position and for a finite time, in that she was not replaceable in box office draw at this moment in time, and thus she could push back. She was less likely than any other actress right now to suffer for it. And she opened the door enough that other actresses can come in and say something about it without risking being the target practice dummy – Lawrence took that for the rest. She deserves a lot of credit. If it were that easy, actresses would have been doing it a long time ago. I also think her starting to say what she has is a thin end of the wedge that has seen Keesha supported, too. The entertainment industry’s ability to silence and maltreat women isn’t changed, but women at the top are starting to challenge it. It’s a start.
I think a lot of it comes down to negotiation. Amy Pascal, as wacky as her hacked emails might suggest she is, knows a lot about the business and one of the thing she said about this is actresses need to learn to REFUSE work if the pay is crap. Get ruthless in the negotiation stage. If a critical mass of top actresses do it, then maybe there’ll be a very slow but gradual change because they can’t say, “Well, we’ll just go to X, Y, or Z if you want to get paid more.”
This is a relationship that I think does require a lot of work and that he has been unfaithful.
The “constant negotiation” bit sounds exhausting.
Ben Affleck used to talk about his marriage like that.
It makes me sad to say this, because I love this couple, but I think they are on the way out. Her interview reads much like Goop’s in reference to Chris Martin (with whom she was separated, but not publicly so, at the time). “I respect him, I love his mind, he is talented.” It’s more about what isn’t being said here. My guess is, they have been separated for some time, and will announce it publicly once the kids are settled into the idea. I hope I am wrong.
I kind of felt the same way, or maybe they survived a possible breakup but it’s not smooth sailing, thus it truly is a day to day thing with them at this point and why she doesn’t describe the relationship in an effusive manner.
Yea……I can’t get over those rumors in Australia. It makes me sad, because I do like both of them……..plus it also doesn’t seem that Liev is the most verbose/gushy person, so he can always come off as a grump (I definitely get that)…….
I feel like I’ve been hearing rumors about their strained marriage for a while. She seems like the type to hold on while he is the type to move on. I hope she has a good support system in place if/when their marriage eventually collapses.
I like Naomi and she was great in Eastern Promises, The International, Fair Game, etc. I liked her hubby’s spot-on acting in Spotlight, but her brother-in-law Pablo Schreiber is my current actor crush. Hot, hot, hot in 13 Hours.
The way she’s talking about him sounds like a slow goodby, “constant negotiation, and seeing how things go” doesn’t sound too exiting…
I’m afraid so… especially “seeing how things go” – it’s almost like writing on the wall..