Watts Taps Into Dark Side

Hap Erstein - New York Times

Having two thrillers based on Japan's "The Ring" on her resume, a remake of Hitchcock's "The Birds" in her future and an Americanized version of the brutal "Funny Games" due in theaters on Friday, Naomi Watts has been spending a lot of time in front of the camera screaming her head off.

"True, but it's not like I started out going, 'I'm such a fan of this genre and I'm scouring the paper for my next horror film,' " the 39-year-old English-born, Australia-raised actress insists.

"This particular film is one foot in the genre and one foot out."

"Funny Games," directed by Austrian Michael Haneke, was first made in German in 1997. In its almost shot-for-shot remake, as with the original film, a pair of mysterious sociopaths in tennis gear and white gloves disrupts the vacation home of a conventional couple - Watts and Tim Roth - and insists that they play some sadistic games that seem headed toward a homicidal conclusion.

Approached to appear in the new version, Watts asked to be shown the original before deciding. "I just couldn't believe how it disturbed me," she recalls. "I was with a friend watching it, and we had to talk to remind ourselves that we were actually watching a film. That we were not in that room, too."

As a film actress, and one who has seen her share of horror films, Watts really appreciates how "Funny Games" often sets the audience up for one jolt, then pulls the rug out from under them.

"Particularly with this genre, you know exactly when the beats are going to come and, yes, you still fall prey a little bit," she concedes. "The door slowly opens, the music slows down, there's a pause, she looks over her shoulder and BAM! You know what I mean?

"We know that formula so well, and yet it does still get you."

What makes "Funny Games" so effective, Watts says, is the fact that almost all of the violence takes place off-screen. "Yeah, well, that's what's so scary about the film. You see the beats leading up to it, you see the aftermath, so that it becomes even more terrifying."

We learn very little about the family being held hostage, but in making them American for this film, they went through quite a transformation. "One thing that felt different was that the original was very sparse," says Watts. "But an American family is always busy. A kid doesn't sit in the car without a Gameboy. We've all got our cellphones and BlackBerries. We talk over the top of each other once we are in the house. Just like any normal middle-class American family."

"Funny Games" insists that we voyeurs consider what we would do if trapped in a situation like this. Of course, Watts let her imagination run wild on the question. "Yes, a million times," she says. "But that's what's so great, it's what we think we would do.

I think I would have killed the people in the first 20 minutes. I'm sure of it, as Naomi, I would have come up with a better idea.

"But how do we know who we are in those situations? I do think I might be paralyzed by my fear as well."

Now, perhaps, Watts might have a completely different view of things, having gone through the life-changing experience of becoming a mother for the first time last year, with her partner - and "Painted Veil" co-star - Liev Schreiber. "Funnily enough," she says, her son was conceived while she was on location making "Funny Games."

She was initially reticent about doing the movie, "And now that I'm a mother, I probably would take more time to make that decision. But ultimately, I would hope to think that my son will wait until he is old enough - and when I say old enough, he can wait until he's 18 to see the film. After then, he's an adult, so I can't control it," Watts says. "I would hope he would understand my reasoning behind it, that it is in my mind an intellectual exercise, and that's all I can say."

Watts has plenty of film projects lined up, including the sequel to "The Da Vinci Code" called "Angels and Demons," but her son is now her chief priority.

"I've done one thing since I had him and it was only a five-week stint on a movie, which felt completely doable." The movie is called "The International," a Tom Tykwer production about an arms smuggling ring, due out in August.

According to Watts, it was a lot less damaging to her psyche than "Funny Games."

"It was the kind of film that wasn't harrowing like this one, so it felt like I could switch it on and off at the beginning and the end of the day."

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