FEATURE STORY

Watts is more than grateful for her upcoming project, Ryan Murphy’s no doubt terrifying series The Watcher, which is based in, as with most things Murphy, a tweaked version of reality. Watts and her Once Upon a Time in Staten Island costar Bobby Cannavale play Derek and Maria Broaddus, a married couple who move into their dream home only to be threatened by terrifying letters from a stalker signed “The Watcher.” Chillingly, said stalker was never caught. Watts will begin preproduction on the project this fall.

However, the series, like its subject, is totally hush-hush. “I can’t tell you anything other than I’m super excited to work with Ryan Murphy. That part I can say with full gusto. I’m excited to be in his hands,” she says with a laugh.

Right now, when it comes to both her career and her personal life, Watts is embracing the things that truly make her happy. In addition to her kids and her friends, she vows, “I’m really focused on making time for myself, definitely. I haven’t always been very good at that. I am a person who seems to have always thrived in chaos, which maybe has something to do with how I was raised. I don’t know.” [Her parents divorced when she was 4 years old, and she moved with her mother and older brother, Ben (now a photographer, who actually shot her for our photo shoot), around southeast England and Wales before heading to Australia at age 14 when her mother remarried.]

While she’s aware of the value of focusing on serenity, it isn’t always easy. “I’ve always been someone who’s like, ‘Oh, god, it’s a bit too quiet around here,’” she admits. “I have a grandmother who’s still with us — she’s 96 years old — and she was always like, ‘Come on, let’s get up, get up and do something, get off your butt.’ So to this day, it takes a lot for me to be still and relax. I do now know that there’s great value in staying still and being quiet and letting things come to you.”

Or going to them, as it were. “Travel is just the greatest luxury,” she sighs. “I just want to get on a plane and go to places. Thank god for science, because after being vaccinated, I felt safe about getting on a plane, but I’m going to go slowly. I don’t have to go to incredibly faraway places for really long periods of time just yet. I’ll go and I’ll take my time, but I definitely cannot wait to be immersing myself in different cultures and seeing new wonderful parts of the world again. I love the beauty and magic and discovery of new places.”

Just before the 4th of July, she saw her window of opportunity to make some magic, and she jumped. After two years of home, work, repeat, she (and, seemingly, from her Instagram, her partner of four years, Billy Crudup) headed to Turks & Caicos for a vacation. It was her first time there, and it was glorious. “I was on holiday for the first time in a couple of years, and I do feel really centered again, having just stopped the world for six days and making some time for myself to listen to the ocean, snorkeling, letting go of all those daily stresses and thinking about just pure and simple things; that has been really helpful. It’s also something I don’t create for myself, because there’s so much on my plate oftentimes. It’s not a complaint — I feel very fortunate — but it was a great reminder, even if it’s just 10 minutes in the morning, to make sure to take time for myself.”

At this moment in time, she’s doing just that, making no big plans for the summer other than just being with family and friends, splitting time between her Manhattan home and the Hamptons — she sold her house in Sag Harbor during the pandemic and is putting the finishing touches on her new one in the boho community of Montauk, where her brother, Ben, also lives — just being.

“I’m excited about it, my summer ahead,” she says, adding, “You know, happiness is something that I love, and I consider myself a reasonably happy person, but you do have to work at it. It has to be earned. It isn’t always given. You have to make sure things are set up right in your life, and I’m okay with that. I like how things are going today.”

In fact, she’s never felt better. “I’m in the middle of my life, and I feel good. I feel strong. Exercise keeps me feeling strong, and it also keeps my head right by fending off any kind of depression. I feel more like myself in my 50s, having accumulated a number of experiences, ups and downs, and gotten through them. And that’s a good feeling.”

One might even say it’s beautiful.

Full Wattage

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