By her own admission, Naomi Watts is a late bloomer. She didn’t land her breakout role in the David Lynch classic Mulholland Drive until she was 33, or give birth to her two children (Sasha and Kai) until she was aged 38 and 40.
As for marriage, she got hitched for the first time, to actor Billy Crudup, only last year, at age 54.
Having waited so long for what many consider important milestones, it was therefore discombobulating, not to mention upsetting, to find herself battling a challenging life event years ahead of her friends and colleagues.
Photographer: David Roemer/Atelier Management. Stylist: Alison Edmond/Art Department. Hair: Renato Campora/The Wall Group. Makeup: Mary Wiles/Walter Schupfer Management. Manicure: Mo Qin/The Wall Group. Production: Robyn Fay-Perkins; Anastasia and Lauren at Noted-Co.
The English-born, Australian-raised actor was 36 and trying to get pregnant when tests revealed she was nearing menopause. “I practically fell off my chair,” she recounts. “I’m being told I’m close to menopause when I’m just feeling ready to get pregnant. How can those things live together at once?”
Amid the distress of contemplating not being able to have children, along with the onset of menopause symptoms, Watts vaguely remembered her mother, Myfanwy, telling her she’d also gone through menopause early. “I left the [doctor’s] office in pieces and rang my mum and said, ‘What the hell? How come you didn’t tell me more?’”
It turns out that her mother went through menopause at 45 but had started having symptoms years earlier. Myfanwy hadn’t discussed it, she told her daughter, because her own mother hadn’t had those conversations with her.
Photographer: David Roemer/Atelier Management. Stylist: Alison Edmond/Art Department. Hair: Renato Campora/The Wall Group. Makeup: Mary Wiles/Walter Schupfer Management. Manicure: Mo Qin/The Wall Group. Production: Robyn Fay-Perkins; Anastasia and Lauren at Noted-Co.
Watts was incredulous that women were effectively in the dark. “It was clear to me that there was this code of silence,” she says. “Aren’t we all headed here at some point? Why is there no available conversation or proper education on this?”
Nearly 20 years later, she’s still perplexed that this fixture of womanhood – arguably as important as puberty and reproduction – remains shrouded in secrecy. It’s why she’s being so open about her own experiences as she chats via Zoom from Paris. She’s in the French capital shooting a new adaptation of the erotic French novel Emmanuelle, ahead of the February 1 release of the second season of Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans (on Binge).
Photographer: David Roemer/Atelier Management. Stylist: Alison Edmond/Art Department. Hair: Renato Campora/The Wall Group. Makeup: Mary Wiles/Walter Schupfer Management. Manicure: Mo Qin/The Wall Group. Production: Robyn Fay-Perkins; Anastasia and Lauren at Noted-Co.
These new projects are notable because they showcase Watts’ ability to flick between an arthouse endeavour and a high glamour, award-winning streaming series with a megawatt ensemble cast. This versatility saw her nominated for two Best Actress Oscar awards: for 2004’s 21 Grams and 2013’s The Impossible. And, crucially, they also offer reassurance that reaching middle-age and somewhat nervously becoming the poster woman for menopause has not been the career death knell she once feared.
As Watts’ explains, when she first mentioned menopause among her peers they would laugh it off. She was far too young, they’d tut. She was being ridiculous. Certainly there was no indication that they were going through something similar.
“The average age for menopause is 51 and I was much earlier than that,” she explains. “No-one wants to feel less than average, so I backed off very quickly and that made me feel very lonely and very scared. Also, particularly being in the industry that I’m in, it felt like a big secret to live with. The shame was a big thing.”
Photographer: David Roemer/Atelier Management. Stylist: Alison Edmond/Art Department. Hair: Renato Campora/The Wall Group. Makeup: Mary Wiles/Walter Schupfer Management. Manicure: Mo Qin/The Wall Group. Production: Robyn Fay-Perkins; Anastasia and Lauren at Noted-Co.
Despite being told she might need a donor egg to have a baby, and after failing to get pregnant with multiple other interventions, Watts and her then-partner, fellow actor Liev Schreiber, miraculously conceived naturally.
She doesn’t know if her sudden fertility was attributable to one of her alternative treatments or “a wonderful set of eggs that suddenly came down for me”, but she gave birth to the couple’s first child, Sasha, in 2007 and to their second, Kai, in late 2008. After stopping breastfeeding in her early 40s, she started having “hardcore” menopause symptoms.
For anyone else, the brain fog, anxiety, hot flushes and sleep deprivation is hard enough but consider being an actor trying to remember a script or worrying about sweating through elaborate costuming and makeup.
Photographer: David Roemer/Atelier Management. Stylist: Alison Edmond/Art Department. Hair: Renato Campora/The Wall Group. Makeup: Mary Wiles/Walter Schupfer Management. Manicure: Mo Qin/The Wall Group. Production: Robyn Fay-Perkins; Anastasia and Lauren at Noted-Co.
Indeed, during our interview, Watts struggles to recall the name of the film she shot in 2013 with actor Robin Wright about two women who become intimate with each other’s teenage sons. It was called Adoration. She laughingly points out that “the memory thing” still thwarts her on occasion.
When told about journalist Imogen Crump having a hot flush live on ABC News Breakfast in November and having to take a breather before continuing her report, Watts asks to be sent a link.
“Stories like that are commendable and brava to her because that’s how you normalise it, by just owning it,” she says. “If it was a male thing and that was a regular symptom, we’d accept it so much more easily but somehow women have been taught to hold on to these secrets and suffer through them and soldier on. We shouldn’t have to. The more it’s understood in every arena of life, not just the household, not just the relationship but in the workplace, the more we can find ourselves operating from empathy. It’s not a disease, it’s not a failure. It’s just something that was always supposed to happen.”
Pick up a copy of the February issue of marie claire Australia on sale Thursday 19th January to read the full story!
