Her ‘Separate’ worlds

“I am sitting here like a great beached whale,” proclaims actress Emily Watson over the phone from her London home.

Watson, 38, is due to have her first child, with husband Jack Waters, in October. But the actress won’t be absent from the big screen when she takes her maternity leave. The Oscar-nominated star of 1996’s “Breaking the Waves” and 1998’s “Hilary and Jackie” has several films on the horizon.

Currently she is the voice of Johnny Depp’s timid fiancee in Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated film “Corpse Bride.” She also stars opposite Tom Wilkinson and Rupert Everett in the taut drama “Separate Lies,” which opens Friday.

Written and directed by Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for writing “Gosford Park” (which also starred Watson), “Separate Lies” tells the story of an upper-class British couple, James and Anne Manning, whose seemingly perfect marriage crumbles when Anne meets a handsome, rich divorce (Everett).

Two more of her films, “Wah-Wah” and “The Proposition,” also screened at the Toronto Film Festival.

Do you know if you are having a boy or a girl?

I do, but it’s secret.

Well, will “Baby X” be accompanying you on film locations?

I am going to see how it goes, really. I think traveling is easy when they are quite young. I just don’t know yet. I’ll take it as it comes. I have been married nearly 10 years; it’s a good way to celebrate our 10th anniversary. The thing about being pregnant is that there is nothing you can do about it. It really does itself. It is quite amazing -- you take your clothes off and look in the mirror and say “What is that?” It’s like being invaded by an alien. The rest of me is still very normal, but my bump is enormous!

Did working with Fellowes on “Gosford Park” lead to you being cast in “Separate Lies”?

Yes, I knew him from “Gosford Park.” He sent me the script, and I thought it was unusual -- an unusual sort of grown-up story. Complicated. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong, which I liked. And she is a strange character -- that very uptight, stiff-upper-lip sort.

It’s about people who really don’t know how to talk about their feelings, and at the same time there is this incredibly passionate undercurrent going on about adultery and murder. It is very strange, I think.

It’s also strange that your character is attracted to Rupert Everett’s -- he just doesn’t seem to have many redeeming qualities.

She is attracted to him because he doesn’t care about anything. It’s quite a perverse reason to like somebody. I suppose [it could happen] if you are in a relationship where everything is completely under control. Also, she is a woman with a profile. She is not the cliche of the rich blond; she is not stupid. She is clearly an intelligent woman, and she hasn’t been able to have children and she doesn’t have a function in life except to keep two extremely gorgeous homes and several nice cars.

She is not a bad person. That’s the thing. She manages to be an adulteress and perhaps a murderess, but still being on the passive-

aggressive moral ground. It’s a very English thing to do -- “I feel terribly guilty and it’s all my fault, but I am not a bad person.”

“Separate Lies” marks Fellowes’ debut as a director. What are his strengths?

Well, it’s always great working with somebody who has written the script. They are totally sure of the material. And he is from that social world. That is why he was so good in “Gosford Park” as well. It is a very particular world where people have trouble expressing themselves and people keep a lid on their emotions.

What was it like doing the voice of Johnny Depp’s intended in “Corpse Bride”?

We never worked together, but I had a lovely letter from the producer and director today saying we have great chemistry! I have done animation before, but nothing on this scale.

I found it quite difficult at first because you are working in such isolation. I didn’t know where to put myself, but you get into the swing of it. The thing is, you can keep going back and attacking it until you find something interesting.

It’s been nine years since you made your film debut in Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves.” Was it difficult to go from a total unknown to an Oscar nominee for best actress?

It was everything. It was fantastic. It was a totally dreamlike amazing thing to happen to be catapulted into that arena with a film of that nature and quality. I am intensely proud of it, but at the same time, you are entering a world where you don’t know where the goalposts are. Suddenly I was in for about a year of doing press, getting on airplanes flying off here, there and everywhere going to festivals. Having had a sort of ordinary and private life before that....

I read that Jean-Pierre Jeunet originally wrote the film “Amelie” for you.

When he first wrote it I think he had me in mind. The thing for me is I don’t speak French, and he wanted someone to speak in English and French, combined with the fact I had been working so hard and wanted to take some time off. So I said no. But all the way around that happens.

“Amelie” launched Audrey Tautou, and she is a superstar now, which is fantastic. The same thing happened to me -- Helena Bonham Carter was going to do “Breaking the Waves” and she dropped out, and there was my opportunity.