Naomi Watts Unfurls Her Physical Transformation For 'Feud: Truman vs. The Swans' [Interview] (2024)

Naomi Watts had a ton of written material and photographs to research her role as legendary New York City socialite Babe Paley for the Ryan Murphy limited Series “Feud: Truman vs. The Swans.” That helped fashion a physical transformation that involved contact lenses, incredible wigs, makeup, and two different sets of false teeth that, it turns out, were an integral part of her character’s temperament. What she couldn’t find were any video or audio of Paley, somewhat remarkable considering her longtime close friend, Truman Capote (played by Tom Hollander), was a fixture in front of any camera or microphone he could find.

READ MORE: “Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans” Review: Ryan Murphy’s anthology series returns with a nuanced, smart edition [Review]

A tragedy more than a feud, the relationship between the pair took a turn for the worse when Capote published an excerpt from a novel he never completed, “Answered Prayers,” in 1975. Written by Jon Robin Baitz, “The Swans” mixes historical fact with imaginary dream sequences that suggest both Capote and Paley would have found their way to forgive each other and reunite if they could. And, perhaps, they did in whatever afterlife may or may not exist.

During a conversation last week centered on Watts’ impressive performance, the Oscar nominee for “21 Grams” and “The Impossible” reflected on why good writing is so important to actors. In hindsight, it’s so obvious it’s sort of strange we don’t hear it more often. (Is this Watts saying the quiet part out loud?)

“You never want to leave yourself completely closed down to a new possible discovery, but this writing was just so juicy, so beautiful,” Watts says. “You can always tell, as an actor, good writing from bad writing, not just because of ideas and things, but how you can memorize lines. For instance, bad writing doesn’t go in right away. Good writing. You can learn it so easily.”

Watts also discusses the physical pain she endured to keep up the unrealistic standards of beauty thrust upon her, her battle with lung cancer, Gus Van Sant‘s cinematic direction, those difficult final scenes, and much more.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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The Playlist: When this project came your way, what made you say yes?

Naomi Watts: Well, a couple of things. Firstly, I had been working with Ryan Murphy on “The Watcher” and having a very good experience. He took me out to dinner and told me that he’d optioned the rights of Laurence Leamer’s novel [“Capote’s Women”], and I knew of the world having lived in New York for nearly 20 years. And yeah, I wanted to, I basically said yes right away before it was even written, but I knew how Ryan creates his world and with people that he’s either worked with before, that he’s really trusts or he’s going for high level people. And so it was an easy, yes. He asked me which role I was drawn to, and I said, Babe, because I loved the dichotomy and juxtaposition, I suppose, of her fragility, yet this unbelievable strength to just keep going and never be seen to complaining or seem too weak. Or she would be able to hold her grace and her dignity and look the other way and continue to move through life. And despite all of these repeated affairs and humiliation. I think that comes from her family background where she was just trained from a very early age, along with her sisters to choose a husband, the most powerful husband you can find. The richer, the better, and a certain sacrifice comes with that, that she just put her heart aside almost and just focused on delivering what her mother told her she must do. And she did it, but at a cost.

I didn’t even know this until I was researching for this interview, but there are a bunch of biographies about her, and she’s a part of many sort of historical records of the time. Is this a role where you can get too knee-deep into the research? Is there almost too much sometimes?

There’s a lot. What’s interesting though is there was biographies or novels or stories on the internet and unbelievable pictures. Those were very informative. How she placed her hands, how widely she smiled or just everything felt, nothing was ever extreme with her, the opposite of Truman. And so yeah, unfortunately I had to just invent this voice based on where I knew she grew up and how she lived and where she went to school. And I knew I looked nothing like her, so I had brown contact lenses, I had teeth. She had false teeth from a very bad car accident when she was 17. And so she had these sort of perfect false teeth that she would go to bed in, but they were incredibly painful to wear for the entire day, but she would never allow herself to be seen by her husband. So, she would wear them at night and sleep restlessly or sleep in a different bed and get up at three 4:00 AM and have a full face of makeup and hair ready. So little things like that, those pieces of story just tell you so much about a character. And then of course, the wig and the aging process because we travel in and out of time from the sixties until her death in 78, so it’s like 15 or more years, and she’s dying as well through the course of the story. So, I wanted to show that with her drawn face. And then for the first part of the show when she’s younger, we had just the top layers of the teeth and I didn’t use the bottom until the end of her life because it created a different shape in the face.

So many of the episodes jump through time. Did you feel like you had to as an actor, sort of arc out where she was on this journey, or is that just something we in the media fixate on and it’s not that big a deal?

No, of course. You always try to have a very well-structured arc, and it’s always quite strange to talk about it most of the time because you feel, “Do people really understand that?” But absolutely, you want the arc to be felt and it’s very intentional. And that said, you have a plan and in this case, I think we started with about three or four [episodes], and then 5, 6, 7, and eight came later. And so whatever the plans may be, they might not actually fit with what you were given, and you never want to leave yourself completely closed down to a new possible discovery, but this writing was just so juicy, so beautiful. You can always tell, as an actor, good writing from bad writing, not just because of ideas and things, but how you can memorize lines. For instance, bad writing doesn’t go in right away. Good writing. You can learn it so easily.

Oh, I’ve never heard anyone say that before, and it’s so obvious. The series had many scenes where Bebe and the other swans are having conversations around a dining table, and some of these are pretty long conversations. Was there any opportunity for rehearsal? Or did you just do one read through and that was sort of it?

We did a couple of scenes at the very beginning where we read with each other mostly. I think we did one with all of the girls, maybe two. I mostly rehearsed with Tom and the beautiful late Treat Williams. But I do remember the first time we got onto that set and first of all, being completely blown away by everywhere you looked, every nook and cranny was just so well done, like the wine bottles that you recognize the label because you’ve been sent it by the studio because you’re an Oscar nominee and that’s a thousand dollars bottle of wine and that you still haven’t drank. So yeah, the set was incredible. And then watching the women come and seeing how they spoke and how they moved and what they were wearing and the hair. And then Tom, of course, and I mean, watching Tom just ooze magic into the room bit by bit, and then having Gus behind the camera. Sometimes we just have the camera move around, and it wasn’t always traditional shooting in that you get your coverage, I get mine, and then we all move on. It was very cinéma vérité or, yeah, a big shot. And it didn’t necessarily mean that your line was caught on camera every time, so you were always having to be on. Everyone just brought something magical to it, and we didn’t get to hang out that much. We didn’t hang out until really after it was done and on the promotional side of things because we all had so much work to do and we wanted to be good at what we were doing.

Was there anything that popped up in your research that you hadn’t realized about Babe or her relationship with Capote before you shot the show?

Oh yeah, plenty of things. So many, because there wasn’t anything to listen to or watch, but there was a lot to read and all the same kind of things were coming through quite clearly that this was a pained woman, a very, very she’d suffered. Her dad was a workaholic and her mother was just pushing the women to just marry well, and that their self-worth was just wrapped up in landing a husband and being a good wife. And it’s just very different. I can’t imagine being raised like that. And her father, this story really shook me. He learned about her brother being in an accident right before he was about to do surgery. He basically invented brain surgery, a neurosurgeon, and he got the news and had to go on with his day of surgery. Now you can imagine that kind of focus and discipline that is getting that job done while living with that news. That seems shocking to me. And I somehow related babe to walking through that immense pain with extreme focus and grace and commitment. I sort of created a parallel there that told me a lot of story.

I’m obviously not a medical doctor, but even as a kid, I remember if someone got lung cancer, the survival timeframe was not very long. Even with chemo. Yet, somehow, Babe lived for another four years after her diagnosis. Do you think that focus is one of the reasons why she stayed alive? She just willed herself to…

Survive? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I mean, she definitely feels like she was a survivor, and that was probably how the relationship with Truman was formed because he was too. And they both have suffered and somehow came together worlds apart and very different, but carrying the same sense of loneliness and unfulfilled. But yes, I think it took tremendous strength to live in that time with that kind of sickness and the emotional sickness, the scars on her heart of having to deal with these endless affairs in front of people. It was horrific for her.

Like many of the “Swans,” she was very angry at what Truman did with his Esquire magazine excerpt, but do you think she forgave him towards the end of her life? Or is that just a hope that we have decades later?

Yeah, I think it did a little bit of a, she didn’t, as far as we know, but in her fantasy, she did. And that’s how they both came to that place at the end of their lives. And I feel like there’s a thing there that as you get to the end of your life, you become more sentimental, more forgiving, more open, more addressing, looking at the things you’ve done or haven’t done or should have done. And I think that really weighed on her. That was really one of her true loves or the closest she had come to allowing herself to be loved despite the complexities of the relationship with Capote when he was gone, despite the fact that it was her saying, I’m done with this. I think she was never the same again. And so she started to really evaluate those kinds of things and living with regrets was not the right way to have done it. And perhaps I should have had him here. This is the person that I’d like to have holding my hand at the end of my life.

Is there one scene in particular you remember shooting the most?

I mean, yeah, there were so many. I think one of the hardest scenes was actually, I mean, it’s such a cliche to say, but the death scene. It’s scary to die. And it just kind of freaks you out in a little bit in a way. I don’t think we have a great understanding of mortality, and so we’re very afraid of it. And we’re not a culture that knows how to grieve so easily. So, there’s so much fear around it. I think also the scene at the end where I’m at Capote’s deathbed was equally moving and scary. And that was also because it was my last scene in the show. And I just remember feeling like, “Oh my gosh, this is over. Babe is no longer in me.” And Tom, I’ve just loved working with. It was just a real marking of the end of this experience, which just really filled me with extreme emotion.

My last question for you is actually about another project that you have upcoming. You’re in Audrey Diwan’s “Emmanuelle” which is going to open the San Sebastian Film Festival in a couple of months. What as it like to work with Diwan? How was the experience?

Well, she’s an incredible woman. Her movie blew me away, and I just met with her. She asked to send me the script and wow, interesting idea [to remake “Emmanuelle”]. Haven’t thought about that movie in about however many decades. But I do remember it, and I just wanted to hear her talk after seeing her movie, “Happening.” Really smart woman, really brilliant filmmaker. And I just thought, “I want to work with good people.” I do feel like film is a director’s medium, and it’s important to work with people that you trust and you want to learn from, and that felt like a good move for that reason.

“Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” is available to stream on Hulu