In one of the very first scenes of Feud’s second season, we see Naomi Watts as Babe Paley—the prima donna within Truman Capote’s bevy of so-called Swans, the glamorous high-society women who flocked around the writer for years—greeting Capote at the door of her Upper East Side apartment, her eyes bloodshot and teary. After a visit to Paris for a dress fitting with Hubert de Givenchy (“He’s such a master,” Tom Hollander’s Capote coos), Paley returns home to discover her philandering husband recovering from a tryst with the New York governor’s wife. Even as she and Capote grieve the disintegration of her marriage, she can’t resist delivering a final, delicious zinger: “That shitty perfume she wears,” Paley says, stirring herself another glass of scotch and offering a brief smirk. “Too much sandalwood for a woman with her face.”
It’s a neat introduction to Paley’s balance of priggishness and acid humor—both of which mask a deeper sadness—that Watts captures with breathtaking skill across the eight episodes of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, premiering on FX today. Throughout the season, Paley’s manicured veneer (it’s said that she would go to bed wearing her makeup and false teeth, lest even her husband catch her in a state of anything less than perfection) begins to crumble—a result of her husband’s ongoing infidelities, her own diagnosis of lung cancer, and, most importantly, the betrayal of her closest confidante Capote, who famously published a thinly veiled attack on the vanity and superficiality of the women who surrounded him in an issue of Esquire, leading to his banishment from New York’s upper crust.
For while the star-studded cast playing Capote’s swans (Chloë Sevigny, Diane Lane, Demi Moore, and Calista Flockhart among them) all have plenty of moments to shine throughout the Gus Van Sant–directed series, it’s Watts as Paley who has the most meat to chew on—and boy, does she chew. “That script!” Watts exclaims over a Zoom interview. “I mean, come on. Every word is just delicious.” Yet Murphy’s latest examination of high-profile cruelty and cattiness (the first season of Feud centered on the notorious rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis) also has a heart—one that Watts is largely responsible for bringing to the screen. “So much about her was performative, but on the inside there was this great pain she was carrying, and the one person who was really able to identify that was Truman,” Watts explains.
Just as delicious as that script? The looks, of course. Given her close relationships with the great couturiers of her day, it goes without saying that Paley’s wardrobe in the show is a knockout. (Almost as much of a knockout is that towering bouffant of a hairdo—one dreads to imagine what the wig budget was for Feud.) Watts had enormous fun collaborating with costume designer Lou Eyrich, even if Paley’s lavish personal style didn’t exactly rub off on her. “I kept some fantastic muumuus that flow beautifully, so I can glide around the house and feel like Babe, but it’s not really me right now,” Watts says with a laugh. “Not for the school run or the dog walk, anyway.”
Here, Watts shares with Vogue her process for unlocking Paley’s more vulnerable side, the joys of working with a nearly all-female cast, and why the possibilities for women in Hollywood—of all generations—have never felt more exciting.
Vogue: How are you feeling about the show’s release at this point, with it coming out in just a few weeks?
Naomi Watts: Well, it’s always that time when people I know are saying to me, “Oh, it looks great! I can’t wait to see it!” And all I can think is, “Oh, boy, I hope you actually like it.” I always get that anticipatory anxiety, but you’ve just got to release it and let people discover it themselves.
How did the project first fall into your lap? And what about the premise of the show, or the script, made you want to be a part of it?
Well, I was working with Ryan on [the 2022 Netflix series] The Watcher, and we’d had such a nice experience. He took me for dinner while we were shooting, and he brought up the second season of Feud, and I was like, “Oh, wow, this sounds amazing.” Then I read the Laurence Leamer [book], which is our source material, and it was just so juicy, and it had everything you’re always looking for as an actor. You always want to play complicated women who are going through some kind of journey, whether that’s evolving or disintegrating—you want to see some kind of change or transformation, and Babe definitely offered all of that. And that script! Jon Robin Baitz. I mean, come on. Every word is delicious. Plus, I’d worked with Gus before as well [on 2015’s The Sea of Trees] and had such a nice experience with him. So it was one of those moments where I was just pinching myself. And then the cast got more and more interesting, with this fantastic group of women and, of course, Tom Hollander, who is just extraordinary. It could not have been more fun working with him. He really brought some high-level art into the room.
Having grown up between the UK and Australia, how familiar were you with the Swans? I imagine they loom a little larger in the American cultural consciousness—do you think that detachment allowed you to be a little less precious with the character of Babe?
Well, you know, Babe was pretty precious. [Laughs.] But that was the fun of it. So much about her was performative, but on the inside there was this great pain she was carrying, and the one person who was really able to identify that was Truman. He was genuinely curious about her as a person, and so she kind of gave herself over to him, and they formed this wonderful, intimate friendship that she wasn’t able to allow herself with anyone else—not her husbands, her children, her sisters, or even her best girlfriends. The women of that time were raised purely to be good wives and not much else. And with that comes a lot of work and sacrifice. You’re always on show. You don’t want a hair out of place, not a wrong word, not a mismatch of an outfit. Everything was planned within an inch of its life. And there’s something quite sad about that, and I think that’s why she and Truman really bonded, because they both wanted to feel seen in some deeper way. They had dealt with abandonment in life and lived without love of any deep kind, so they became peas in a pod. They were also very different, of course, but I think they were after the same thing and their pain was manifesting in different ways.
When it came to her accent and mannerisms, was there much to go on during your research process? Were you even thinking about mimicking her, or was there a certain spirit you were trying to channel?
I couldn’t mimic her voice and her movement because there was nothing available—only on the page. In fact, Babe made a point of that—never to be in front of the camera, never to call attention to herself in that way. So that I had to make up. But I did have these teeth, because Babe was in a car accident when she was very young and had false teeth, so that altered my speech a little bit, and I had to get to the other side of having it sound natural. I just imagined how people would speak at that time, in that era with that level of wealth, and went off things I’d read about how her voice was just delicious and creamy. And in terms of the movement, it was sort of the same thing. Never an extreme, expressive moment—except when she was secretly behind closed doors with Truman, who allowed her to be giggly and silly and fun and naughty. Otherwise, it was all very gentle and careful.
And of course, throughout the show—with her cancer diagnosis in particular—we see a more human and vulnerable side to Babe, which leads her to meditate a lot on mortality. Given she was always presenting this veneer of perfection to the outside world, how did you imagine what that more intimate side of her might look like?
When you read about Babe, you realize how much sacrifice and work was put into delivering this level of perfection, and the loss that came with that and the lack of love. The amount she smoked just to keep her weight and figure at what she considered to be the right place, for example, and how she set out a dinner table, the stress of who to invite, constantly thinking and planning. I think you lose the in-between moments when you’re always in that kind of loop. And so when she became sick, everything started breaking down, and she became aware of how few really deep connections she had with people and how big her regrets were as she came towards the end of her life. And I think that brought on panic, especially when Truman’s betrayal took place. Because then she had no one. Her husband has betrayed her over and over again and left her feeling lonely. And she was absolutely raised to be a good wife, nothing more. She wasn’t really educated, because college education was considered a waste—it was more important to have a rich husband, and so all the energy was put into that. And so where is she in that picture? I think that was only recognizable to her towards the end of her life.
What was it like to be working alongside this cast of incredibly talented actors? Was there a real sense of camaraderie on set?
I think we were all very aware of how wonderful this writing was and very grateful for these strong parts at this point in our lives and careers and to Jon and Gus and Ryan for creating this incredible world and putting us all together. But at the same time, we all had a lot of work to do—there were so many very long, verbose scenes, so we were really in the work. We had some lovely moments on set, whether it was knitting together or holding Demi’s sweet, tiny dog, or talking about a Friday cocktail. [Laughs.] We were bonding all the way.
It must have been fun playing around with the humor in the script as well. You all get to deliver some real zingers.
Oh, it’s so fun to be bitchy. [Laughs.] We couldn’t believe some of the dialogue. There were definitely some crack-up moments. And then Tom just floating all over the place, creating magic before our very eyes. Every single take, he would do something different and take us by surprise. It was wonderful.
There are some fabulous outfits in there too. How much of a dialogue was there between you and Lou Eyrich when it came to putting Babe’s wardrobe together?
I’d actually worked with Lou on The Watcher, so there was already a kind of shorthand there, and I really trusted her, as I knew this was as fun of a project for her as it was for me. She was delving as deep into the research as I was and exploring all of these great relationships that Babe had with designers, from Givenchy to Balenciaga to Dior. We were like kids in a candy shop, we just loved it, and that closet ended up being pretty impressive. Some of it was real old designer finds, and some were remade or imagined—and every now and again, you might even see a few high-street pieces, as she had to keep the budgets under control. If it’s just a polo-neck cashmere sweater, it doesn’t have to be a $3,000 sweater, as now you can get that on the high street. In fact, one day I remember we were looking for an evening outfit, and I had to have the fitting at home because they were out shooting miles away. And she came to the house, and we ended up going through my own closet, and I said I’ve actually got these vintage pieces that were my mum’s from Rifat Ozbek or Ossie Clark, [which] we looked at and got inspired by. And I would get texts from Lou all the time saying, “What do you think of this color? What do you think of this fabric?” The whole thing was incredibly fun.
After you’d spent all those months dressing up as Babe, did that high-society style rub off on you at all?
You get so into the clothes, but they’re really part of that specific experience. And you say, “Oh, can I have this? Oh, I want that. Please, can I go home with a few pieces?” But then you get them home, and they don’t really make a lot of sense anymore because you strongly identify with them as being someone else’s clothes. Every now and again, you’ll be able to reinvent something and wear it a different way. But, yeah, I certainly was swooning over many of these outfits, and I might be wearing them one day, maybe in a decade or two. I kept some fantastic muumuus that flow beautifully, so I can glide around the house and feel like Babe, but it’s not really me right now. Not for the school run or the dog walk, anyway. [Laughs.]
You touched on this earlier in regards to the ensemble cast, but I know that you’ve been quite outspoken over the past few years and longer about the challenges that women face in Hollywood to find compelling roles over a certain age. Was that a conversation you were having on set with the other actors, and do you feel like the tides are changing on that front in any way?
The tides are changing, there’s no question. When we finished this job last year, I felt I’d got to know everyone well enough—we were all quite bonded and trusting—and I’d just launched my product line Stripes, addressing the dryness women experience going through menopause. And so I gave everyone a box and said, “I hope you don’t mind me sharing this.” Because you never quite know how that’s going to land—especially in America, as I think in other places the conversation is way ahead. But I think everyone was just grateful, whether or not they wanted to talk about it. That’s everyone’s own business. But I think it comes with a certain sense of relief. You know, half the population will go into menopause at some point. So why act as if it’s a secret? Why not just talk about it? These things become so much easier as we get more honest and real with them, and you feel much less alone when you’re able to identify with other people’s stories. And to speak to the Hollywood part of it, I got my big break quite late. I was already at the end of my 20s, early 30s, really, with Mulholland Drive, which is what changed everything significantly. And I was told very early on that, at a certain point, it was all going to be over quickly. In Hollywood, a woman’s career lasts until you’re 40, and that’s it. And I was like, Why? What do you mean? I heard someone say, “Well, you know, once you become un-beep-able, that’s when it’s all over.” I was shocked. It’s just so absurd that we’re reduced to that. We’re not here to be just one thing. And the stories we tell should reflect the lives of older women—they’re just as relevant. And so I’m grateful for people like Ryan Murphy, who is interested in telling stories about women at every age.
Now that you have this second career of working on your beauty line and Stripes, has it changed how you approach acting at all or made you more selective with the roles you choose?
Not really, no. I mean, I’ve actually been approached a couple of times to play characters who are talking about menopause a lot. And that’s totally fine. I’ve never really been scared of that whole thing. Sure, I have moments where I go, “Oh, I look like that”—because you don’t feel like that inside. I feel the same as I did in my late 20s, when I finally felt fully formed. I do get some aches and pains here and there in the morning. But I say lean into it. I’m excited to play the old lady because I love what I do. I love being part of a story and working with great filmmakers and great writers and actors. And that makes it easy to love what I do.
Feud: Capote vs. The Swans premieres on FX on January 31.
