Naomi Watts is taking on one of the most demanding roles of her career, playing a former Nazi concentration camp guard in the new film "The Housewife," and the actress says the part left her genuinely frightened.
The film is based on a true story and is set in 1964 in Queens, New York. Watts, 57 and an Oscar nominee, plays Hermine Ryan, an Austrian-born woman who appears to be an ordinary housewife happily married to a builder named Russell Ryan, played by Luke Evans. On the surface, Hermine spends her days baking cookies and looking after their home.
That life unravels when a New York Times journalist, played by Tye Sheridan, turns up at her door searching for a former Nazi camp guard hiding out in the neighborhood. The journalist is stunned to uncover Hermine's hidden past. In reality, Hermine is Hermine Braunsteiner, a Nazi guard who was responsible for sending hundreds of Jews to their deaths during the Holocaust.
Watts on Playing a Real War Criminal
Watts attended the Toronto International Film Festival for the film's premiere, where she was asked whether she had been afraid to portray a real person with such a history. She said she believed "terrified" was the right word, adding that the duality of the character was something an actor could really sink into.
She went on to say that as an actor, she is always looking for complex characters, and that this one was certainly complex in the extreme. Watts said she was also struck by the story itself, noting she had never heard of it before, and by how someone could carry on with life like anyone else while hiding that past and pretending it had never happened, until everything begins to unravel as the story plays out.
Entering Her 'Villain Phase'
Watts, who built a wide-ranging career after breaking through with "Mulholland Drive" in 2001, said "The Housewife" feels like the start of her villain phase. She said she had never played anything like it before and admitted that, to be honest, she is now in her phase of playing "bad" characters, but that this one was an extreme case. She said she was very scared, but in a way she knew what she was getting into.
Asked whether it was difficult to leave behind such a complex and dark character at the end of the day, Watts said she had to learn to separate the work from her personal life. She explained that you go to work and do whatever is needed to make the story function, trying to give it as much authenticity as possible. She said it is ugly, horrific and haunting, and that doesn't mean you fully escape it the moment you leave the set. She said it stays in your mind, whether you're thinking about the next day or about what you did that day. But she added that you know the story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and that you are honoring it, because it is one of those stories that must be remembered.
