TORONTO – “Fear takes us to so many different places,” Naomi Watts said. “You can’t really judge. One person’s suffering is going to manifest itself differently than another’s.”
The Australian actress is mulling how different people react in the face of catastrophe. Some summon up untapped courage, generosity, selflessness.
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And then there’s the guy in “The Impossible,” the film Watts stars in with Ewan McGregor — based on the real-life ordeal of a family that is literally swept away in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami — who won’t lend out his cellphone. So what if McGregor’s character, lost and in shock, needs to let his parents know he is alive?
Set in Thailand, and inspired by the experiences of the Alvarez Belons, a family of five on Christmas vacation at a coastal resort when the waves came crashing in, “The Impossible” screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Watts has received best-actress nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes for her portrayal of Maria, who’s separated from her husband and two youngest boys, and caught in a raging current of water and debris with her oldest son (Tom Holland).
The first half of J.A. Bayona’s disaster movie follows Maria, who is resolved to find her family, to survive, no matter what.
In Thailand, the tsunami resulted in more than 5,000 deaths, with an additional 2,800 missing and unaccounted for.
“If there is any good coming out of these kinds of disasters … it is that it strips away everything else,” said Watts, speaking in Toronto. “People come together. It’s not about class, and it’s not about race. It’s about: How are we going to get through this? And that’s when the space for humanity comes back into it.”
Except for that guy with the cellphone, maybe.
“Well,” Watts added with a smile, “not always, but maybe the next moment.”
The star of David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” of David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises,” of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “21 Grams,” Watts said that making “The Impossible” — while it was nothing compared to what her real-life counterpart experienced — was physically harrowing work. “It was tough … But it was all marginal compared to what Maria and her family went through,” she said.
Stone Wood weds fiancee in London
LONDON – Two British newspapers say Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, 65, has married his fiancee, Sally Humphreys, at a ceremony at London’s Dorchester Hotel.
The Sun and the Daily Mirror carried photographs of the rocker with a pale boutonniere and a dark blue suit, and his bride in a traditional white gown and a clutch of matching white flowers.
The Sun quoted Wood as saying, “I’m feeling great” as he and his 34-year-old bride kissed and posed for pictures outside the exclusive hotel in London’s upscale Mayfair district.
The newspapers said guests included singer Rod Stewart and his wife, Penny Lancaster, as well as ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife, Nancy Shevell.
The marriage is Wood’s third. A call and an email to his U.S.-based agent weren’t immediately returned Saturday.
New Miss Universe won’t return to BU
BOSTON – The 20-year-old Rhode Island woman who brought the Miss Universe crown back to the U.S. for the first time in 15 years will not be returning to Boston University.
Olivia Culpo is a BU sophomore. She told WCVB-TV that she wants to finish her education, but does not believe that Boston has a big enough market for what she wants to do.
The self-described “cellist-nerd” said she made the decision after her victory over 88 beauty queens from around the world Wednesday night.
The aspiring actress already took a year off from school to fulfill travel and charity obligations related to the Miss USA crown.
— From news service reports
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