Katherine Waterston
Talks About Her First Time
words by Susan Michals, photos by Robert Todd Williamson
It’s a fine line. Here’s this young, naïve – maybe even a little wanton – young woman you’ve just paid to take care of your kids. Now it’s time to take her home…or is it? Morality says yes – and so does your wife; give the girl the money you owe her, drop her off, and be on your way. But what do you do if you see that hint of a look in her eyes; a glimmer of hope that says, maybe – just maybe – she wants more than just a ride? In The Babysitters, that age old question is deftly explored, when a teenager (Katherine Waterston) sees an opportunity not just for sex and love, but a great deal of cash.
You may recognize Waterston – she kinda looks familiar. She is the daughter of Sam Waterston, whom I remember fondly as storyteller Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby opposite Robert Redford. But the majority of the population knows him more as Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy from the Law and Order franchise. Katherine has enjoyed growing up in a thespian household on the East Coast, something that suits her just fine. “I tried L.A. and I didn’t like it,” says Waterston. “I’m just too much of a New Yorker.” As Shirley, she appears to be your typical teenager, getting good grades and babysitting to make extra cash. But there’s much more going on underneath: she is all about control, down to the most minute detail. “I always thought (The Babysitters) was simply a reversal on the typical teenage rebellion. She lives in chaos in a messy house - her way to rebel is not to skip classes and get bad grades, it is the exact opposite - cleaning the house and getting straight A’s. It's just different from what we usually see.”
After one gig in particular for Michael and Gail (John Leguizamo and Cynthia Nixon) she gets more than $10 an hour – in fact, a lot more. Shirley sees an opportunity and soon enlists her friends in a high school hooker ring, where she is the madam dictating the moves, all the while using babysitting as a cover. But as she gets more involved in her teenaged prostitution ring, she begins to lose the very thing she treasures most – control. “In her short sheltered naive way, the control worked – but now she finds herself falling in love with a man and not knowing at all how to deal with it - not having any tools to deal with it. She attempts to control the uncontrollable, the emotional feelings and it doesn't work. Finally something has come up in this girl's life that shatters her idea of herself in the world. Her loss of control is a loss of innocence; the world is more complicated than she knew.”
While Waterston has worked in numerous stage productions and television shows, this was her first time in a lead role. “Everyone was coming up to me everyday on the set asking if I was really nervous or if I felt the pressure to carry a film,” mentions the young actress. “But fortunately John (Leguizamo) was so supportive; he made me feel that I deserved to be there.” Waterston proves beyond a shadow of a doubt she has the capability to carry a film. As Shirley she is riveting, vacillating between troubled teen and shrewd businesswoman.
Next up she finds herself once again in an unusual role as she stars in The Factory, opposite John Cusack. The story centers on a cop who’s been hunting a serial killer for years whose victims are prostitutes; sort of his way of cleansing the city. “It’s very Silence of the Lambs,” says Waterston. In this film, she plays one of the killer’s captives – but with an interesting combination of character traits. “I’m a pregnant, paraplegic prisoner – the three P’s! With Stockholm Syndrome.”
art direction by Laura Ann
hair and make-up by Olaf Derlig
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