Naomi Watts wrote love letters to Matthew McConaughey

WHEN Naomi Watts was cast alongside Matthew McConaughey in The Sea of Trees, she started writing him love letters.

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WHEN Naomi Watts was cast alongside Matthew McConaughey as husband and wife Joan and Arthur Brennan in the Gus Van Sant drama The Sea of Trees, the pair made the extraordinary move of writing love letters to each other in character, so that when Watts arrived on set with no time for rehearsal they had already created a unique backstory.

“Our stories are played in flashbacks, and our characters have this tumultuous marriage, so we just had fun with it,” she recalls. “We didn’t have any time to prep so when Matthew reached out to me via email, I said: ‘Do you mind if we write to each other in character?’ And he wrote back and said: ‘Write at will, Joan.’

Watts says the pair proceeded to create their relationship through letters.

“I try to be the ‘normal mum’, it’s just who I am. It wouldn’t be normal for me to operate quote-un-quote like a ‘just a movie star’”.

“Some would be just a few lines or something fairly benign, and then other times it would be a long letter about how we failed and how we need to change and accusations of giving up; the same old story, your classic marriage problems.

“Sometimes we would write poetry, sometimes love letters, sometimes stormy letters, sometimes I would leave a voice recording [as Joan] knowing he was going to be shooting in the forest that day. It was great.”

Another film Watts recently finished is the transgender drama About Ray, which stars Elle Fanning as a teenager who transitions from female to male.

Watts plays his mother, and Susan Sarandon his grandmother. The film had just wrapped when Caitlyn Jenner announced her transition in a cover story for Vanity Fair.

Watts stuns on the cover of the October issue of Vogue Australia.

“It was interesting timing, and has become even more poignant now than we knew at the time,” Watts says. “It was just a beautiful script and when I read it my heart broke in pieces for this family that was going through this very extraordinary time that was filled with so much emotion and hope. I think as a parent you only ever want your kid to be healthy and happy and confident. And to see they’re struggling and that they want to do something quite dramatic, but it’s the only way they know how to live.”

The 46-year-old looks more beautiful than ever on the cover of the October edition of Vogue Australia, which goes on sale on Monday 14 September.

The old Hollywood adage that roles for women dry up as they get older is not ringing true for Watts.

Originally published as Naomi Watts wrote love letters to Matthew McConaughey