had reached the final stage of pregnancy; the “couldn’t travel, couldn’t really go outside, could barely walk” stage, when she decided to move a makeshift recording studio into her Los Angeles home. She and her partner, actor Robert Pattinson, were in full-on nesting mode: she was doing a “complete excavation” of her “Virginia Woolf disaster room” – a fashion and God-knows-what-else dumping ground – to turn it into a nursery; Rob was “doing things he’s never done before”, says Waterhouse, 32, “like driving to [shopping mall] The Grove at 6pm on a Saturday evening and staring at Williams Sonoma pans”. In the midst of it all, giant speakers and mixing desks arrived, and various musicians floated in and out, so that Waterhouse, by that point exclusively wearing a giant white muumuu from Madewell (when it came to pregnancy dressing, “I did not thrive,” she deadpans), could finish her album before, well, life as she knew it changed forever.
But there’s nothing like a deadline to get something done: her upcoming record, , was delivered in the first week of March; the baby two days later. That was – I discover checking my diary – a mere 10 weeks before we meet on her photoshoot, taking place in the luscious garden of one of those quintessentially LA mid-century houses – all straight lines, endless panes of gleaming glass and astonishing views – perched high up in the serene quiet of Beverly Hills. My God, I think, the of this woman.
Since .
