Ben Watts
I first met Naomi Watts in Sydney in 2001 during a cover story interview for Harper’s BAZAAR Australia. Naomi was promoting her star-making role in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (and I was nervous because she was my first celebrity interview). Well, turns out she was lovely. We ate roast chicken. Cut to January 2025. We are sitting together at Barbuto, a restaurant in New York’s West Village, eating roast chicken. Twenty-five years into her international acting career, Naomi is carving out new terrain, this time in menopause.
When she was 36 years old — after being told by a doctor that she was close to menopause — she entered a harrowing time of fear and professional vulnerability coupled with a lack of knowledge about menopause, then (and in many places still) a wildly underserved women’s health issue. Years later, during the COVID pandemic, Naomi thought, “Eff this,” and menopause awareness and treatment became her mission.
In 2022, Naomi launched Stripes, a beauty and wellness brand focused on menopausal health. She’s following that now with her candid first book, Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause, which is already a New York Times bestseller.
Laura Brown: Whether you’ve had huge success or during the years beforehand when you were auditioning, you’ve always been tough. In Dare I Say It, you write, “I’ve always had a strong sense of resilience, and have been pretty good at not letting fear take hold of me. My friends and I often remark that good things happen when we take chances on ourselves. Sometimes I look back on choices I made early in my career and think, wow, that was bold.”
Naomi Watts: I’ve always had a strong sense of resilience. I moved around a lot as a kid, having to find my way in new environments over and over again. Also, I lost my father at a young, young age. But yes, I’ve never really seen myself as someone who is bold. I know bold. My mother is bold, and I’m very drawn to bold. I’ve always felt more introverted than that, but I do think I’ve been up for risks, probably because of resilience and maybe some naiveté.
LB: What do you consider risky today?
NW: Taking risks today is very different from when I was in my 20s. I’m more conscious now; it was spaghetti on the wall before. I came to America after my 21st birthday with $2000 in my pocket and one phone number which was a manager that my agent knew. He represented Jack Thompson. I rang him, had a nice meeting, and he said, “Let’s go and meet some agents.” I had Flirting and Brides of Christ as resume items, but if you don’t have something that’s resonated in America, it doesn’t mean anything. And I didn’t realise that. But I knew that Nic [Nicole Kidman] was here, Jack Thompson, Deborra-Lee Furness … Having Aussies around made things seem possible. I had a bunch of meetings with agents, and everyone was uber positive as they are in America. And I thought, wow, I’m set. They love me.
I went home, then came back to the States and they were like, “Oh yeah, hi. Good luck to you. We remember you but see ya.” And I was like, oh shit, this is going to be harder than I thought.
LB: After ten years slogging away in LA, David Lynch cast you in Mulholland Drive. Now, almost 25 years later, you’ve reached the heights of success as an actor but also stepped into a fuller voice for yourself; what you want to talk about and where you want to lead. I remember a few years ago when we were having dinner in New York, and you said, “I’ve had an idea for a company to help women in menopause. It’s called Stripes. Because it’s about earning your stripes.” You work in an industry riddled with judgment and insecurity, where people are always putting themselves up against impossible standards. So, when did you decide, eff this, I’m going to talk about menopause?
NW: I think the exhaustion of carrying a secret eventually just became too burdensome. And I think when we identify an issue or something we’re struggling with, own it and take control of it, there is power in that. Don’t forget, I came to success through the glorious David Lynch in my early 30s. Someone in the industry at that time said, “You better put your foot on the gas, because it’s all over at 40.” I said, “Why is it all over at 40?” And they said, “Well, you know, it’s just when you become unf***able.”
And I was like, huh, okay. And you become unf***able when ovaries give up? So, therefore we’re not worth anything? It was shocking but memorable.
Because I had been told that scary thing at 36, at the point where I was trying to start a family … the panic, the fear, the loneliness, and then the need to connect with other people and get information [that wasn’t being shared] made me spiral, and it just became too exhausting.
The point where I just went, fuck it, I’m going to do this — it was COVID when we were all stuck at home with our thoughts and ideas. And the one thing that was really clear was that we really needed each other. We needed community.
When I started researching menopause, I already knew that skin was a big piece of it for me. My skin was erupting, red, raw, angry, itchy, dry, rosacea, all of it. Everything I’ve been using didn’t work for me anymore and was actually causing agitation.
So, I’m stuck at home, and I thought, I’m going to do something about this. I know that half the population, if we’re lucky enough to live to that point, are going to go through menopause. So, I’m not going to be alone on a hill. But whenever I would Google it, any information would come from the UK. Nothing had really reached the US.
LB: Was the silence around menopause because women thought that things were just supposed to hurt?
NW: Yeah, we are comfortable with suffering. We’ve done it over and over again. We’ve just been okay with it. And they didn’t really start researching women’s health until the early ’90s. Clinical trials just used men. So, no wonder no one was talking about it, because there was no help available. But something has to give eventually. Doctors are now upping their time in research. Before, doctors had one or two hours of their entire residency allocated to menopause.
LB: I was thinking the other day: When you were in the hands of King Kong, what would you have thought if someone said one of your seminal lines in 2025 would be, “Dry vag”?
NW: [Laughs.] Yeah, I never would have thought it.
LB: You write in the book, “Speaking about the experience of menopause was a career risk.”
NW: I was nervous. It was a risk. I was hiding it. But the world has changed. When I was entering Hollywood, we were still in the era of being private, mysterious, no scandal, stay away from the press. So, that was in my DNA. But I just felt like it was time for me; and through knowing the numbers of how many people are going to go into menopause. It’s felt like it is probably the last untouched conversation that’s available for women.
LB: What were some of the most memorable responses when you started talking about it?
NW: I would say my husband, Billy [actor Billy Crudup], just because he wasn’t squeamish about it. He was incredibly compassionate and said [about Stripes], “Wow, that’s a cool idea.” It moved very quickly from then on.
LB: Your mum went through menopause at 45. What did she tell you about it?
NW: She still was on the early side, yeah. So, she would have had a multitude of symptoms and years leading up to it. But I didn’t have any details. When I said, “Why didn’t you tell me more?” she was like, “Well, these were the conversations I didn’t have with you, because my mother never had them with me.”
And I was like, oh, okay, so this is a cone of silence that we’re supposed to have all agreed to sign up for? No blame on her, that was just the era.
LB: What do you encourage mums to tell their daughters now?
NW: I hope that the conversation starts in fifth grade in sex-ed, like these are the bookends of your hormonal journey. It starts with this, then you have to worry about getting pregnant, STDs, fertility, and then menopause happens at the end. So that everyone knows the whole journey.
LB: The real thrill of menopause is that 360 degrees of symptoms can just come down to one word.
NW: If you don’t know that menopause was the cause, you start to feel crazy. You’re losing yourself. Are you coming back? And it’s so hard to find anyone to help you.
LB: What are your top three best pieces of advice for women going through menopause?
NW: It’s not the end. That’s the biggest thing I hope women get out of this book. Take agency over it, and have it all on your terms. Find a way to have fun with it. And community, community, community. You’ve got to laugh. Because doom and gloom isn’t going to help.
LB: Ha, neither does brain fog. In the book, you tell a funny story about having dinner with [producer] Ryan Murphy and you forgot the name of a show you’d just filmed.
NW: I had literally just walked off the set and had an incredible time doing this show — Too Much, with Lena Dunham — and I was like, oh my God, he’s going to ask me what it’s called. It’s happening. It’s so awful. And you think about women in board meetings with, like, 50 men and that’s what’s happening. Then they lose their confidence.
LB: But it’s not the end!
NW: It’s not the end. Find a community. Educate. I always say, communicate, educate, hydrate.
LB: And in the book, you mention “The Five T’s”.
NW: I’m not trying to be preachy, but one, find your tribe — that’s community, obviously. Teachers. Find people you trust. Truth: Own it and be honest with yourself. When you share that with others, people genuinely want to help. And if they don’t respond positively, then byeeee. Timelines — I’ve always been a planner. Make the plan, make the timeline, but don’t fear it. Reinvent it if it doesn’t go according to plan. Tenderness. Be kind to yourself. Just really learn how to do that. It’s taken me a long, long time to do that.
LB: And something that doesn’t begin with a T but is so important: Push your doctor.
NW: Don’t gatekeep information, share it. But if you’re at the doctor and they’re just blocking you after taking your medical history and symptoms, and if they just say, no, no, you’re fine, don’t be silly, here’s a sleeping aid … Go somewhere else.
If you’re really suffering, you shouldn’t have to. This is a third of your life. We’re living so much longer, and everything’s connected. If you don’t get it sorted out now, it could cause other issues. The biggest one is bone health. How many of our parents or friends are falling over and then having the last years of their lives be miserable because they’re too frail? That was a generation that missed out on women’s health education and treatment.
LB: No more! When will Stripes launch in Australia?
NW: Hopefully in the autumn of this year. We’re a small team, small but mighty. We’re working on slow but steady growth. We will get there!
LB: You’re in the second half of what has already been an extremely full life. Your children, Sasha and Kai, are now 17 and 16, and you got married in 2023 at age 54 after being with Billy for seven years. Now, there’s a whole new horizon of marriage and professional adventure ahead of you.
NW: I’m a late bloomer, and some things are just worth the wait. It’s going to sound corny, but what I’ve come to learn, [and] the people I connected with – friends, doctors, all of that through owning this – it’s become like a purpose. I didn’t have a sense of that before, and this has made me feel pretty good about myself. Acting has had that effect too, of course, but I needed a new way to feel like I was being useful.
My grandmother would always say, “Get up and do stuff. Don’t be lazy.” I want to be helpful. And that’s what storytelling is, right? It’s bringing people together.
But yeah, everything in my life came late. Except for menopause. [Laughs.] It’s the only race I ever won.
Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause is out now through Penguin. Visit penguin.com.au
