Naomi Watts: for anyone who ever needed a reminder of what can happen when you hold onto your dreams—here she is

INGRID SISCHY: Some seismographic events occurred during your childhood--the kind of things that can really be formative.

NAOMI WATTS: Yes. They really shape you. Mine was not your conventional upbringing, but it was exciting and adventurous. It was by no means painful, though there was a lot of sadness. My father was not around a lot, and he died in 1976, when I was seven.

IS: Wasn't he with the rock band Pink Floyd?

NW: Yes. He was their sound engineer and also the road manager. I have very few memories of experiences with him--I'm sure it's psychology 101 that I blocked those out. There are certain things that can act as a trigger, though, like a photograph or a person that I run into, but for the most part, where he's concerned, I remember big stages and lots of equipment--just fragmented stuff. I have a fantastic photograph that my brother, Ben, printed and framed for me of my dad at work. All this equipment is just piled everywhere. During the shooting of 21 Grams I had it mounted in my trailer.

IS: Your parents separated when you were four. I'm always puzzled when people say that they remember everything from that age or earlier.

NW: I don't get it, either. Memories from the crib? Not me. My parents' separating is not in my conscious memory, but I know it would have affected me. My father remarried, but towards the end of his life, my parents were very much in communication and thinking about rekindling their relationship, which obviously made his death a lot more difficult, especially for my mom. It was very sudden, and very shocking and upsetting. My mom was still young and did not know how she would cope with two small children.

IS: What made you happy as a kid?

NW: I just loved that there were lots of people around. My mother hates it when I say that she was a hippie because now she's not that at all. She has two shops in England, in Norfolk--House Bait I and II. They are full of eclectic stuff--anything from chandeliers to Indian slippers or Moroccan rugs. Growing up, we weren't living in communes or anything, but she was baking her own bread and making her own clothes. There was pot smoking, and you know, it was the music world. It was hippies in their prime.

IS: And your brother, Ben--he's a photographer, and the two of you are obviously close. Were you always?

NW: Yes. There's only a 19-month separation in our ages. Basically, since we could walk or talk we've been at each other's throats. We hated and loved each other, beat the shit out of each other [laughs], competed with each other, and stole from each other--all those things that brothers and sisters do.

IS: Tell me more about your mother. Did she ever want to perform?

NW: She had tried being an actress and wanted to do more--that was definitely her dream. And I believe she would have been very good. But she had us when she was still very young. There were no nannies, so she had to look after us herself. We were lucky to have a roof over our heads.

IS: That roof was in England and Wales initially. The next stop was Australia. Why?

NW: Although my mother was doing quite well in London, after a while it became tough. By the early '80s, London was in a recession, so she decided to move to Sydney. She felt that Australia was the land of opportunity, and indeed it was. It was there that she started doing costumes and sets for movies. So, much to my brother's and my chagrin, we were shipped out there. She had remarried by that point--my stepfather was also in a band.

IS: She did it again.

NW: Yes. [laughs] His band did really well in Australia. My stepfather actually featured pretty heavily in my life. He comes from good English stock, and he was really careful about our education--which was still not that great--but while we were living in Britain he put us in the right boarding schools in England. It was a good thing that Mother married him. I haven't spoken to him in a long time, though--they divorced and it wasn't the best parting. Now she goes out with a fishmonger who is the greatest man. He has really high-end fish shops--he smokes his own salmon and makes his own Thai fish cakes--and he's completely gorgeous. But she won't live with him--she's like, "No, no, no ... not with your Wellington boots!" Her house is decorated like a film set.

IS: It sounds like you were always surrounded by people living some sort of creative life. But what about you?

NW: In fact, I really felt as if I was the only one in my family who wasn't creative. When my brother was a child, he was always doing these comic strips and wild drawings for hours. And my mum could draw as well, and my stepfather was a musician. So I was like, What's my thing? What was my creative voice, and how could I find it? I always felt like the outsider in my family because I wasn't creative. Even when I went to acting classes, it just felt like a hobby more than, you know, "This is art." It wasn't until much later that I started to really understand what my particular creativity was and to identify with it.