Emily Watson's New Juicy Role

It was a decade ago that Emily Watson received her first Oscar nomination for her debut film "Breaking The Waves."

Since then she has starred in a wide range of movies, such as "Hilary and Jackie," "Red Dragon" and "Punch Drunk Love."

In the new movie "Miss Potter," she plays a woman who is ahead of her time. It was a juicy part that Watson said allowed her to flex her well-developed acting muscles.

For all her acclaim, growing up Watson never intended to become an actress. She wanted to be a writer and only heeded the call when she was a university student and became friends with a group of actors.

"Then I did a lot of photocopying, waitressing, filing and eventually ended up acting," she told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.

Her career took off. She even met her husband when they were part of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

It's that experience that she brings to her character, Millie Warne. Warne is a good friend of legendary children's author Beatrix Potter, who says things that most women in 19th Century Britain would never fathom uttering. Watson said in the context of the time Warne's behavior was outrageous.

"Women of a certain class had a pretty rough deal," she said. "Either you made it in the marriage market by your mid-20s or that was it and you were taking tea with your mom and dad for the rest of your life."

Potter and Warne share similar circumstances but Potter gets a publishing contract with Warne's brother and Potter's life completely changes. Warne is left behind to wish she had the same opportunity.

"She would love to have a great talent to get her out of there," Watson said. "And all she's got is an opinionated mouth on her, which was fun to play."

Chris Noonan, who directed "Babe", also directed "Miss Potter." He was one of Watson's incentives to doing the film because "Babe" is one of her favorite films of all time. She said she turned Noonan down two or three times because she had just had a baby named Juliette — in honor of Shakespeare — and her life was too hectic to go back to work.

"I was at the stage when you can't get dressed before dinner time," she said. "Shall I have a shower today? Maybe not. Eventually, I said, 'All right, yes, I'll do it.' "

It paid off. Watson said she loved working with Renee Zellweger, who plays Potter. Watson said she was a "force of nature" and was more prepared for her role than any other actress Watson has worked with.

"She's really, really something," Watson said, "and very, very generous and warm and friendly and, you know, I have no idea what to expect."

Unlike Zellweger, Watson has appeared in smaller independent films that win her award nominations but do not attract the same media attention Zellweger receives. There is a significant difference, she said, between being a movie star and a working actress.

"People in that position have a very strange load to bear, all of that with the paparazzi," she said. "I was very lucky that I was happily married and settled, and all that stuff is sort of not an issue. And I feel very lucky that I have a certain amount of success just because I'm an actress, and it has nothing to do with anything else."