Naomi Watts Is Done With Secrets And Shame

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I think I just got to the point where I was the burden was too heavy. I was carrying around this secret I wanted to feel my best self, and it just it wasn't.

It wasn't a.

Great feeling, and I think the time spent carrying that around, you know. I think it wasn't until I was in my late forties where I was like, I'm just going to own this.

For MoMA Mia, You're listening to no filter and I'm Meya Friedman. Here's something that I've noticed about famous people in Hollywood, particularly women. There's a difference between being a celebrity and being an actor. Kate Blenchett actor, Jennifer Anniston celebrity, Emma Stone actor, Angelina Jolie celebrity Toni Collett actor, Lively, celebrity,

More recently, when she has been nominated.

For one hundred acting awards and won forty six of them. She's one of the most famous actors of her generation, but I wouldn't call her a celebrity. Naomi Watts is fifty six now, and the reason that.

I would put her in the.

Actor category is because even though she was actually with another very famous actor, Liev Schreider, and they have two kids together, and the fact that one of her closest friends is Nicole Kidman.

Naomi has always been.

Very private about her off screen life. She's let her work very much do the talking. You probably didn't even know that she recently married actor Billy Crutter, and you probably didn't even know, even though they're both huge deals in Hollywood, again, because she's more of an actor than she is a celebrity now. A couple of years ago,

Public eye as herself.

She was one of the first famous women to talk openly on social media no less about menopause. She experienced it far earlier than most women, and it caused her a huge amount of shame, something that she's only just recently decided to reject. She's written a book. It's called Dare I Say It? Everything I wish I'd known about menopause, and it is so good. It's partly a memoir because we learn a lot about Naomi's own experiences and her life.

But it's also a feel guide because.

It's packed with really useful information from experts for any woman who is in this.

Life stage or about to hit this life stage.

The thing you're about to discover about Naomi and I promise I'll get to the interview in a second.

She is stupidly normal, like ridiculously normal. She doesn't seem like a celebrity.

So maybe she's kind of inventing a new category because she's kicking these huge career goals as an actor. Maybe you saw her in Capodi Versus the Swans and the Watcher and a whole lot of stuff. She's having this major resurgence in her career. Everybody wants to work with her. The book is incredible while at the same time being

Enjoy this delightful conversation with Naomi Watts.

Can you tell me what you were ashamed of when you found out at thirty six that you were going into early menopause.

Well, I was ashamed that I was, you know, thinking this was the end of everything, and you know, not just my fertility, my career, my use as a woman, which is absurd and I dig into that in the book as well, but this societal imprint of your worth is wrapped up in your fertility, and when that reproductive system breaks down, you're I mean, as doctor Gunter her quote is just so wonderful. You're just chucked in the pile, like that's.

It, You're done.

What's the point of view?

Yeah, my way of saying is, oh am, I supposed to go to the corner and pull out my knitting needles and just rock on the chair. It really felt scary and that that created a lot of shame knowing and I think this speaks to the beginning book end.

You just want to be like everyone else, You just want to.

Be on the same page at the same time and not sort of go too far from the crowd that you're moving within. And certainly that's how it started with me, when everyone was having their period in.

Their thirteen fourteen year old.

Years and I was nowhere, and I went so far as to make myself be a part of that group so I could keep up with the Joneses and literally faked having a period and stuffed tampon up there, my poor little badge, and just so my boarding school friends would see a string and think that I was grown up too. So the minute I hit men well or started feeling symptoms and sort of was slowly testing the waters with some of my closest friends, and it was all met with Oh, don't.

Be silly, there's no way.

You're way too young.

That's just ridiculous, you know, which instantly told me, Oh, this is not happening for anyone, and so you retreat, and then the shame begins.

So many of us, well for me, my menopause and my pery symptoms and all of the emotions and physical symptoms that came with it. Happened when I was in a really good place in my career. I'd achieved a lot and I'd had three children. For you, it came in a very different place, and it happened early for you. A lot of women who have cancer treatment or medical issues will often be thrust early into menopause and might

Had you already done my Holland Drive?

I had, and I was Naomi.

Watts in as ridiculous as it sounds when you were saying it yourself, I had done not only my Holand Drive, but King Kong and The Ring.

Okay, so you were already, Naomi Watts.

I was playing an ngenoee in King Kong, and.

Just at the tail end of that I, in fact, I think I went to New Zealand to do some pickups reshoots, and I'd already met my partner, who I knew we were trying to start a family, but hadn't succeeded at that point. And that's when an older friend of mine said, well, you might want to go and get your blood work taken. I was like, really why, and she said, just check your numbers. They can tell with hormones if that's having anything to do with you

And the word perry was not.

No, it was not a thing.

It wasn't a thing.

And I mean it might have been known within the medical community, but it certainly wasn't a word I was familiar with right up until I was well past it.

And that somehow feels like a much gentler word. Yeah, it does.

It feels like a sort of an off ramp.

Yes, yes, yeah, close to menopause did not sound like that sounded like a dive into the deep end, and especially at the precipice of wanting to start a family.

So yeah.

He asked me to if I'd gone through any symptoms, and I said.

Well, night sweats.

And I've been ticking those boxes when you have to do those like litany of questions night sweats for years. And I had chalked it up to our analogy to a certain food or maybe that extra glass of wine or you know, something that my body just wasn't tolerating. And then I talked about my periods being a little closer together, much lighter, much shorter, and he said, yeah, well, what about your mom? When did she go into metopause? And I said, oh shit, she went in at forty five.

That's all I know. I didn't know anything else.

I didn't know that she'd had a multitude of symptoms that she wasn't feeling great, and I didn't know that this had, you know, taken place over a passage of time. I just knew that she had stopped her periods at forty five, and I was thirty six at the time, so I still felt a long way away from that. And yeah, and I think he said, your numbers to get pregnant, you have to fall under sort of fifteen, and I was already in the high teens. And my blood tests after that were just going up and up.

The one main.

Signifier, I suppose is that you haven't had a menstruation for a full year.

And then you get your menopause.

Birthday, yepee and then from there on, your basically post menopausal or a menopausal.

You decided to call your book dare I say it? And on the cover is a picture of you with a megaphone and fires coming.

Out of it.

That is not the kind of soft focused memoir that we would expect from someone as famous as you, or from a from.

Any kind of woman. Really, and dare I say it? I want to ask about that because that does that speak to shame? Does it speak to anger? What's that about? Tell me about that decision.

Yeah, well, first of all, I want to say I never saw it as a memoir per se.

But it's interesting you say that. So do you think that it as a memoir?

Yeah, because when someone asked me, when I learned what a memoir was like an autobiography is like your whole life. A memoir might be a theme in your life or a period of time in your life.

And to me, this is about a theme in your life. And it's not just about your life. It's about your life through the lens of menopause.

But it's it's it's not just a like a textbook. There's a lot of personal stuff. You brought a lot of yourself to this book, I.

Had to bring myself to it.

You can't do this in half measure, and otherwise I really would have been to me, it would have been strictly a memoir where I'm just telling endless stories about myself.

But it's shared.

The focus is shared with the expertise of doctors, with other friends of mine, friends of friends, their stories very useful.

All well, thank you.

Also, I mean, it's the book I wanted when I was going through that because the Internet was not even really active, I had no place to go. And when I, as I told you, when i'd go to friends and I felt the doors closed, I was like internalizing everything and then thinking I was losing my mind because I didn't have an outlet. So this is supposed to be a cozy conversation on account with your girlfriend.

We talk about Mamma Maya.

The three pillars of everything we do are help, heart, and human and this book is all three of those things for me. It's funny, it's incredibly helpful, and it has so much heart. And it's the book I needed too because it made me feel sort of seen, heard and understood, which is another thing that we talk about when you can meet unicating with women.

But dare I say it? Tell me about that?

So I love?

I mean, as you know, choosing titles, names for anything is virtually impossible.

Everything's taken, you know.

I've had it that kind of difficulty with my company Stripes Beauty as well naming products, and it's just it takes a lot of effort. I've always been into wordplace and expressions and to speak.

To your point about heart, humor and help.

I want all of those things incorporated into every bit of messaging I'm trying to put across.

And yes, I wanted it to feel bold. I did. Dare to say it? Why?

Because there was a need And I'm sick of holding the secret and shame and you know, I feel like shit. And so the chances are every other woman who's lucky enough to be able to go through menopause to live that long is going feel some version of that. Some might sail through and don't need to, you know, have one single conversation, but it's just nice to know, you know, Hey, are you going through that?

Yeah? Me too.

I see it's tough. How about we talk about it. I wanted to create a conversation that helped women feel as you say, seen, and yes, the humor and the irreverence were all part of it because it's so much more palatable.

It's not all doom and gloom, although.

There is plenty of it, and I'm not going to shy away from it, but we can approach it with some humor. You know, tell these ridiculous, horrific stories and then you know, as you remove yourself from them, they can be funny. And you got through it, and through that you learned something, you survived, and you can share it with your friend, so it's a little less echy for them.

And so that was sort of the point of the book.

And the dare I say it was just it's an expression that my grandmother used all the time, and as you may know, she's the matriarch of my family and has left me with all of her values. And yeah, it just felt like it was bold, cheeky and fun.

Yeah, I'm daring. I hope it doesn't feel too uncomfortable for you.

It certainly was for me, and I'm guessing all of these other women that had to carry around the same kind of secrets.

But let's help you tolerate it more.

After this shortbreak, Naomi and I discuss what it's like to be a woman in her fifties in Hollywood and also how she met her husband, Billy craut Up. Stay with us, your experience is I mean, there are so many universal things about going through men, and some people might think, oh, well, she's a Hollywood star, she's one of the most famous women in the world. It would

Go the whole way.

It was packed with your Golden Globes dress on your lap. Now that's probably not an anecdote that would happen to many other women, but we've all had that same sort of experience.

It's like celebrities, they're just like us, right, But.

You live in this microcosm of you know, like our culture on steroids.

In terms of Hollywood and the.

Way it judges women for getting older, and it would seem the outside that the worst thing you can do in Hollywood is get older.

How did it play out for you?

I mean, there's the private, the secret of it and the shame of it when you were going through it. But when you decided to speak out about it and be public about it and start a company and write this book, what were the considerations that you had to take into account and the people around you in terms of what impact it would have on your career.

So in the I started late, as many of your listeners may know, not by choice. It just didn't turn out that I got going in my early twenties, Like lots of actors I tried, didn't didn't go so well. And not until David Lynch cast me in muholland Drive was I known within the industry.

And then things kicked off pretty quickly after that.

And I remember at the time an agent saying, well, it is all it's all going to dry up.

For quite literally, yeah, but so you better put the pedal to the metal and just go like gangbusters working.

So it's like, oh my god, and why why is it all over?

What do you mean?

And they said, well, you know, kind of what.

Happens is you work until you're you know, unfuckable, and sorry, I don't know if you can swear.

I've heard that a lot.

I've heard that a lot, and that's part of metopause, right, it's like the official time when you're not fuckable anymore?

Yeah, exactly, like and what does that mean?

Oh okay, right, when you're not producing babies, you're not.

Fuckable, they don't want to fuck you.

Doesn't sound right or fair, you know, like, but it sat with me and I did work like crazy for that ten years, and I felt the loom and then you knows, as you know, I was then told I was going into early menopause, and so I was definitely not going to share that secret. I definitely wish I had a source, a resource of some kind for me to feel less alone, like a book, like the internet, like friends, doctors.

Even to talk to.

There was no one, and I think I just got to the point where I was the burden was too heavy. I was carrying around this secret. I wanted to feel my best self and it just it wasn't. It wasn't a great feeling.

And I think the time spent carrying that around, you know.

I think it wasn't until I was in my late forties where I was like, I'm just going to own this. And it was really a lot to do with meeting my husband he's now my husband, and being able to be brave enough with him. It was really then from there and he wasn't like, oh ick, that's not did. He didn't have any squeamishness around it. It was just like, oh, great, okay, what should we do. The minute I felt safe sharing it with my partner, I just kind of went surround

It was just I was in a loop.

And it wasn't until I did deep research that some of these ingredients in these products I'd been using before were just now not going to work for me any longer. They were too harsh to stripping, and so I wanted to create a line. And that's when I came up with the idea for Stripe's Beauty that was specifically targeting women, were speaking to women with those same symptoms and targeting their needs massive hydration loss.

Basically, when you decided to speak out, were the people around you who manage your career nervous? Because would that change how you were seen in your industry? Would it change the parts that you were considered for.

I certainly thought about it myself over and over again.

It's it's a good idea or a terrible idea.

I really oscillated back and forth, and I took my time. It took years to come to develop the nerve to actually finally say.

It out loud, and like I said, the.

Exhaustion, I thought, you know, this is too much to carry, and almost naming every proper that you have before somebody else does is empowering. Once I learned the statistics that all of these women are going into menopause every single day, and that's fifty percent of the population that will get there. Why is it such a taboo thing? This just doesn't make any sense.

Have you noticed that it's changed the way you've been perceived? Do you get sent difference? Well?

Now, I mean, you know, I'm working on a show with all women right now and menopause. There's lines in it that's addressing menopause.

There was in Feud as well. They know I'm not afraid to talk about it. Obviously.

You said you've become like the Hollywood go to confessor that women like famous women just text you I'm there, I've arrived.

What does that feel like?

Yeah, it's funny and I welcome them. I say, yeah, bring it on. What do you need a doctor? Do you need a shoulder?

Do you need well?

You know, how can I help? And I really appreciate it. Yeah, people want to confess. They don't want to carry it on their own. And knowing that I have done, you know, a few years of researching it, experiencing it, I think that puts them on a fast track of feeling, you know, a little bit more comfortable in the beginning of that way.

For actors, just back to your career for a second. For actors, it seems like from the outside there's two types. There's celebrities and there's actors. And with actors, from my perspective, it seems like they can't You don't know a lot about their private life. They don't do necessarily a lot of press, they don't post a lot on social It's about disappearing into the work, and that does seem to

Just the character that I play.

I was so fascinated by that decision and why you made it at that time in your life.

I think it.

Didn't it happen with COVID, you know, where we were all trying to connect with each other, whether that was on Instagram and being foolish or putting some message across that was hopefully connecting women with other women. Think and certainly the idea to launch stripes happened at the beginning of COVID. It was something I'd been percolating, but like I said, I didn't have the courage to go forward.

But when we were.

All stuck at home with nothing but our ideas, family and you know, dreams, basically, that's when I started to really formulate and just go, you know, fuck this, why not?

Why not?

The story of how you and Billy met.

I had never asked you guys about your origin story before. I love people's origin stories. But what I didn't realize is that you had met on a job and that you'd actually played lovers and that you'd had sex scenes together.

Acting is so weird.

It's so weird, strange job wearing people, seeing other people so weird.

And you were like, we've been dry humping. But I just recently ended my long term relationship with the father of my children, and I wasn't.

It didn't occur to me, like can you, like, how does it? How does it.

Change from oh, we're just dry humping, and like how.

You get to know that person? It's the in between moments, it's not the dry humping. Although there was a moment after we'd got to know each other, which was several months of sitting around talking about you know.

Any list of things, whether it was kids or.

Acting or you know, business travel.

You know, we covered.

Everything in these sometimes hour long lighting setups, and we just got along. And you notice how someone works with other people, not just your connectivity, but how they treat other people, how people respond to them. You know, you learn a lot about each other through you know, twelve fourteen hour days.

Sometimes does it start off as like because of the physical intimacy, does it?

Is it sometimes like any other connection.

It's like sometimes small talk and then sometimes you really get to know someone and it goes deeper or do you just go straight to the deeper because you already kind of dry humping, so it's a bit of a shortcut.

Oh gosh, Mia, we're both consummate professionals. I mean, Billy really, seriously is there for the work?

And then I think yes, some gentle, nice, friendly conversations developed over time. And then when later when we saw each other, and by the way, we did meet here and there throughout New York, but that was when we came to know each other properly on the set of Gypsy. Later, outside of work, we had friends who were scheming, who were trying to put us together, and that's when you learn even more about each other, not just who they

Shifted looking for it. I was not.

Looking for it.

And you know, though we'd been separated for a good year, we'd only just officially announced it and told the kids.

So I certainly wasn't in any.

You know, by any means, looking to partner up with anyone.

And it was a very very slow.

Start for a lot of us.

We go through for those people who are in long term relationships, A lot of women go through menopause with the person who knew them before. So it's kind of which is it provides its own challenges, But there's a certain I don't know, safety in not having to come out to sort of have it happen to someone who's

It was mortifying, And.

Yeah, I'm always going to go very carefully. So I already had carried the shame in private for quite some time, so to begin, you know, exchanging touchy feely moments with somebody was quite scary. I didn't know how my body was working so much anymore. And I, yeah, this patch. There is many different ways to take hormone replacement therapy, as you know, at this point in time, I was

Like scrub off. I can't believe a doctor told you to take it off with car oil.

Yeah. He was like, it's the only thing that works.

So I, yeah, I got caught up in the moment and had to excuse myself. And again this is in the book, which is why I feel like I'm okay telling it. Billy has signed off on it. But yeah, I couldn't get not just I took off the patch, but the mark. And I was just in there for ages trying to, you know, get rid of any trace, like he.

Would think this would What was wrong with you? What's that all over your body?

You know? How did you feel you had to take off the patch because someone here was going.

To see you naked.

Yeah, this is the end.

I'm I'm only here, you know, like as a as an aging woman, I'm not going to be able to I mean, we hadn't even had those kind of discussions about, you know, would he want to extend his family or anything.

Ready in your forties though, So this is so interesting about the shame that you carried.

It's not like it would have been a shock, no, I know, but it's just it's how you felt.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a shame that's.

Like yourself, and it's my fault. I did this to myself. I brought myself onto menopause early because I did X y Z you know.

And you needed to literally scrub away the signs that you were not no longer fertile.

Yes, yes, can you imagine? And I literally am, I actually can came.

Out after being in there for far too long without seeming completely weird on the other side of the door, and it was like, is everything okay?

And and I.

Just was like yes, well no, but yes, And I.

Was just in there. Look, I'm in menopause. Should I just leave?

I'm sure this is going to be Oh you got and and he was like what, because like we're just getting fine and well, you know.

And then he said something lovely to you which we're not going to talk about, but that's in the book that made you feel in that mo so safe.

And clearly it's like it unlocked something in you.

That just gave you the confidence to not just be comfortable with him, but be comfortable with the world.

I mean, that's an incredible gift.

It is. It was a level of safety that not only did I want to, I really really needed and.

It was, like you say, a powerful gift.

The rest of my conversation with Naomi, we talk about beauty and botox and the surgery she will and won't have lots.

More after this short break. You talk about.

Aging as well, and it's something that we all. I mean, aging is exhausting, Naomi, Like it's even for someone whose faces are not connected without work at all. It just feels like there are so many choices to make. Do I get botox, do I not? How much do I get how often do I get it? Do I get a bit of filler?

Do I do this? Do it?

And all these different treatments and all these things you can try and all the money and then do I go on a zempic like it does feel completely exhausting. How do you personally navigate all of those choices when you are so under scrutiny.

I like, I'm obsessed with knowing everything, researching it, taking consultations, even talking to friends.

What if wait, you did this, you did what? Okay? And what was the recovery? How was it? You know?

And I've certainly experimented with little bits and pieces in there.

I say this in the book.

For now, I'm going to just tolerate my jewels and hopefully you will too for now, you know, Yeah, yeah, for now on camera and hope to you know, for Jesus that the DP has.

Enough talent he can light me.

Well the director of photography.

Yeah, do you feel vulnerable when you go onto a set or I don't know how these things happen like cast, not that you'd have to audition for anything anymore, but it must feel vulnerable, like in the makeup chair with the director or the director of photography.

Yeah, for sure.

And I always, you know, I try to just get ahead of it, like you know, in the best way. I just often go over to the DPDP in Australia and say, hey, these are not my friend and they're not going to be your friend either.

So these littlejowl jowls here, they create pockets.

And if you can help me out, and it's not always you know, bounce.

That I need, I need a negative light.

You know, I've learned, you know, I know I know the tricks and you know it's See, there was a time where I would think, oh, I can't believe that actress spoke to the DP or the director like that.

That's but you know, we.

We have to do that to look after ourselves, and especially when you're working on a low.

Budget movie and you.

Know everyone's fighting time and so you know, all things get fixed later on. Amazing things that can happen in post. But I want to try and put as much as I can the message forward that it's okay.

It's okay to age.

It's a privilege, and you know it is uncomfortable, it's not for the faint of heart, but it's okay to do nothing, and it's okay to do lots of things if you want to, whatever suits your fancy. And I'm not swearing off it. By the way, there may be

I want to ask you two more questions.

The first is about grief, because that's something that takes a lot of us by surprise. I was going through perimenopause and menopause, also through COVID.

And I would go for these walks and I would just cry. Every day.

I would cry and I couldn't My son had moved out of home, and I couldn't really work out why I was crying. I thought it was about that, and now looking back, I realized.

That I was grieving.

I was in this transition process between you know, menopause and perimenopause is a transition, right, It's like reverse puberty, and I was.

Grieving for.

What I was leaving behind. What was your experience of grief.

Yeah, and you know, there's the physicological side of things and then there's the emotional side. And I remember actually when I had my first baby, that drop in hormones and when you start you leave the hospital and you're just sobbing and you have no idea why you've got a beautiful baby, and you're like, I don't understand what's happening.

Like anything could make me cry.

So there's that when when you're through peri metopause, this like the hormones just suddenly flood out of your body as well as yes, you're grieving this change, this transition.

You're a different you and you're not young anymore.

How do you how do you walk through this next period of your life as.

This new you?

And it's it can be scary. And the saving grace for me has been through connecting with other women and sharing my deepest, darkest secrets, my truth and knowing that we're not alone and we grieve all the time. Every day is there is a little version of grief from

And crying.

We talk about this in the book is so cathartic. It's free therapy therapy.

I love how you said that crying is free therapy. I'd never thought about it like that. And you know, you also talk about the non free therapy, that the pain kind of therapy, which is also really.

I a big crier, Like, yeah, it's interesting.

You know, people see my movies and think, oh wow, she must be an emotional wreck.

But I'm pretty stoic.

And playful, which is something that.

As Yes, it's another way of getting away from the grief.

So but it is another version of that.

It is like sharing something that you're afraid to feel. But I think you know, the book, the Company, Stripes Beauty, and my movie career, they're all kind of a meshed. They're all about hopefully giving people permission to feel something.

It's very generous what you've done.

Thank you.

It is, no, it is very generous.

My last question is about what are the good bits.

I would say, you know, the women finding those women, and they're the ones that you've known for a long time, that you've brought through decades. That just gets deeper and deeper, and then there's actually room for new ones, which is I never would have thought that I could create friendships after my forties with my life as full as it is, But I still have room. I'm still making great connections with women who have similar stories. So I would say, yeah,

You know.

And I've had experiences where I'm stopped on the streets now me and this is one of the good bits where.

I think, oh God, I haven't got my lippyon.

They're going to want a selfie, you know, because it's a movie in me or something, and they say, I just want you to know I had a conversation with my husband, and I never thought I'd be able to talk about it.

And it's all because of you. Thank you, thank you for creating the dialogue. And that is so meaningful to me.

That is, you know, just for one person, and that one person might tell another person. That is I feel like my job has is done, and you know, I feel proud of having taken the risk to all of it.

So how are you so normal?

Am I? Normal?

How I am that you're stupidly normal?

And it's like I've met a lot of famous people, but it's like you're not famous.

They're different to you. And I've never seen anyone.

Where their fame as lightly as you wear yours. And I've been thinking a lot about that. And is it because do you think you weren't famous when you were really young and so you became you were a fully formed person. People say you freeze at the age, right.

Yeah, yeah, I think I nothing happened until thirty thirty one, so I was fully formed. I've spent most of my life not famous, although now it's getting it.

It's getting half half.

Yeah.

The only time I would say I exploit my fame is to get a restaurant.

At table, you know, at a restaurant. That's when I might call ahead and.

Hope, hope that that name might shift someone from a no to a yes.

Well, you are a gift. Your book is a gift. Your work is a gift. We haven't really spoken about your work, but I mean, obviously watching this renaissance that you're having. You've always worked steadily, but it seems like, you know, you've become amused for Ryan Murphy and people have been looking at you in a different way, and you're getting to do the most extraordinary work and you just keep getting better and better on screen and off it.

Oh thanks Mia, thank you so much for having me.

See I told you that she was stupidly normal. Isn't she delightful? She just buzzes out of frequency. That is very normal, like the girlfriend that you've had for a really long time. There are so many elements to Naomi's story that are best left in her own words as she's written them, Like she has this experience with sex toys which made me laugh so much that she wrote about so we've popped the link to her book, Dare I Say It? In the show notes. Now the executive

Thanks for having me in your ears.

M