Emily Watson Says Growing Up in a Religious Cult Almost Stopped Her From Starring in ‘Breaking the Waves’: ‘I Was Like a Piece of Wire That Had Been Unplugged’

The Oscar-nominated actor is at the Sarajevo Film Festival as the president of the jury and the recipient of an honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award Emily Watson is one of the most lauded actors working today, having earned multiple Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, as well as winning a Silver Bear in Berlin, a European Film Award and a SAG Award. But growing up in a religious cult almost ended her illustrious career before it even began. Speaking at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where she is presiding over the jury as well as receiving an honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award, the “Chernobyl” star spoke candidly about the experience of growing up as part of the School of Philosophy and Economic Science.

The London-based organization advocates for conservative values, with strictly traditional gender roles and sexual ethics, and has often been described by former members as a sect, new religious movement, and a cult, with Watson describing it as the latter. I was born into a very lovely family, but I grew up in a kind of religious cult that was very strict. I was a very devotional young person.

I felt very strongly about it. It took me a while to find my way because of that.” Watson credits acting with “saving her life.” While she began her performing career on stage as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it was Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” that sent the actor into international prominence. The 1996 drama saw Watson play Bess McNeill, a young woman living in a repressed, deeply religious community in the north of Scotland.

There, she falls in love with a Danish oil worker played by Stellan Skarsgård. When he suffers a life-altering accident, Watson embarks on a sexual journey that contradicts the strict moral guidelines of her community. When “Breaking the Waves” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996, Watson’s religious upbringing was not widely known.

According to the actor, it took her a “lifetime” to process her childhood, but she can now see the stark parallels between her personal life and the breakout role that landed her a first Oscar nomination. I was told to go on my undignified way.” “That moment was a rupture,” she went on. I was desperately upset, but I also had a sense that my heart was taking flight.

I knew in that moment that I should trust that feeling, because my true inner self sent me on the right path. But that sense of rupture, when there’s a sort of a nuclear explosion and an exposure to light and energy… All of that is in the movie. That’s part of why it works, because I was like a piece of wire being unplugged.” Still, despite this cataclysmic synergy between art and real life, Watson did not tell Skarsgård about her upbringing until 2016, when they shared the screen again in the hit show “Chernobyl.” “He literally did a spit take,” she recalled.