How Naomi Watts Prepared to Work With Bing, Her 145 Pound Great Dane Co-Star in ‘The Friend’
Naomi Watts has appeared opposite some of the greatest stars in cinema — Sean Penn, Viggo Mortensen, Leonardo DiCaprio, even King Kong. But none of those leading men prepared her for Bing, the 145-pound Great Dane she co-stars with in “The Friend,” a drama about heartbreak, art and a very big dog that screens at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.
And getting comfortable with Bing was a six-week process that involved more than handing out a few treats. Bill Berloni, the veteran animal trainer whose job it was to prepare Bing for his close-up, insisted on having Watts meet two times a day for 20 minutes each with the dog, so she could learn how to control the lumbering giant on the streets of New York City, where “The Friend” was shot.
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“Initially, I thought, is this necessary?” Watts admits. “I’m an animal lover. I’m not put off by a little fur and slobber.” She wondered if their meetings could at least be compressed to once a day, for 40 minutes instead of breaking them up. But the thing about Great Danes is that their massive size makes them, well, couch potatoes. “They get tired easily,” Watts says.
But that passivity disguises their power. If Bing were to glimpse a squirrel or another dog, or to just get spooked by a passing car or truck while shooting a scene, Watts might be in trouble. “He’s so gentle, but if he were to run abruptly in one direction, it could pull your arm out of its socket,” she says
Despite the undeniable cuteness of Bing, “The Friend” grapples with some weighty matters. Watts plays Iris, a writing instructor whose mentor Walter (Bill Murray) commits suicide and leaves her to care for his Great Dane, Apollo. That’s a problem, because Iris’ rent-controlled apartment has a no-dogs policy and the landlord threatens to evict her unless she ditches Apollo in a shelter, plunging her into a crisis. It’s a dilemma made more difficult because the two have forged a connection. Somehow, Apollo, who also seems to be mourning Walter, has helped Iris come to terms with her friend’s death and to unlock her own creative ambitions.
Grief is central to “The Friend” and to much of Watts’ work. From “21 Grams” to “The Impossible” to this year’s miniseries “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” many of the characters she plays deal with loss, guilt and punishing, often debilitating, regret. Watts thinks she’s drawn to these kinds of characters because of her own experience with tragedy — her father, Peter Watts, died when she was 8-years-old.
“I’m sure it has a lot to do with the loss I experienced at such a young age,” she says. “It drives this need to heal, in some way. Grief changes you forever.”
But Watts says there’s another, more hopeful strand that connects her work. “I’m also attracted to films about friendship. It’s not explored enough. We examine love and romance all the time, but friendship is such a powerful thing, and later in life, that becomes so clear how important it is to have those relationships.”
On her last day shooting “The Friend,” Watts finished a scene with Bing on a commuter train. As she got into her car to go home and leave the role and the production behind, it occurred to her that she wouldn’t be seeing Bing again. There was a trick that Bing performed — he would, and here Watts makes some dog noises to demonstrate, sing on command. So, Watts’ had the driver turn around and bring her back to set.
“I found myself sprinting up the road to go and say goodbye,” she says. “I needed my song. I wanted this moment to be marked. And when I found Bing, I just fell to pieces.”
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