Suki Waterhouse, sporting a fantastic pair of fake breasts, signature blonde hair swept up in a Pamela Anderson do, jogs after an old man speeding around on a sparkling red motorized scooter. In the music video for the new single “On This Love”, Suki indulges in the humor and opulence of a love that might be a little bad for you. It’s the type of music video that’s a joy to watch, maybe because you can tell the people who created it were having a great time: the video was directed by Suki’s younger sister Immy Waterhouse.
The first Waterhouse to hit the scene, Suki made a name for herself as one of our fabb-est fashion It-Girls—a personality-filled model with a plummy accent running about the town—before carving a path in cinema and rock-influenced indie-pop. Now in her thirties, holding on to her own narrative is essential to Suki’s work, as is politely shoving aside whatever box the world might try to stick her in.
This past year has been filled with watershed moments for the musician: Suki’s sophomore album Memoirs of a Sparklemuffin—a cute name for a colorful and theatrical but also murderous Australian spider—arrived around the same time as her first child with actor Robert Pattinson. Immy, besides directing Suki’s music videos (this is their third collaboration), currently stars in the Gilded Age drama The Buccaneers. The sisters share sunny good looks, sly charm, and a mischievous sense of humor that delights in the dark details. They’re quick to laugh, not shy about telling each other off, and just as protective as they may be each other’s toughest critics. Chatting with the two of them, I felt like I was a guest on a family vacation (in a mortifying turn Immy told me that she stalked my Twitter before our call), complete with a cameo from their mom.
Nicolaia Rips: Can you tell me a little bit about when you started working together?
Suki Waterhouse: We actually started making videos a couple of years ago. We made “The Devil I Know” together.
Immy Waterhouse: It was just me, you and one guy. It was really chill. We were in a friend’s house, but I also had, like, a broken collarbone?
SW: Immy came to visit me in L.A. and the first night I sent her out to a party with Rob, and I got a call saying that she’s fallen down the stairs, and she’s too embarrassed to tell anyone, but that she’s hiding in a corner with a broken collarbone. So I had to leave set—I was filming something—and we all went to the hospital. I think we shot the video, our first piece of work together, like, five days later. Yeah, but I think we always use our limitations to our benefit.
IW: I think we always use our limitations to our benefit. We also did “Dream Women” together, and our little sister Maddi DPed it. We shot it on a camcorder with some Super 8. It was really fun because we didn’t have a plan. We just went out onto the streets of New York.
SW: I feel like that song in particular was sort of a memory that I’d had from being 18 or something, and someone saying the words “Dream Woman” to me, and then, everything just being so awful, and going to such shit afterwards. New York was the inception of that song. For “Dream Woman” I was like, “I’m sick of plans; I just want to get a camera and be with my two sisters, and see what we find.” You can’t really do that with anyone but your sister or someone that’s so close to you. We found this camcorder store, and Immy’s very charming, so they let us film in there. That was the goal: set out and see where we can go with just our sisterly charms.
IM: There’s a trust. You can throw out ideas that are maybe stupid. You can really play around a lot more.
SW: Immy will push me so much more than anyone else would. Like when I’m freezing cold in the pool at the end of a music video.
IW: She’s like, “Can I get out?” And I’m like, “No, shut up. Do some doggy paddle.”
SW: You’re like, “Put your head back under the water and don’t breathe.”
IW: I’m like her dom.
NR: Were you two close growing up?
SW: We’re all very close, there are three sisters and one brother. It’s a very cute thing having two sisters, getting to grow up together and then work together. Immy and Maddi are the first people that I send music to. I send them so much music they usually don’t listen to it, and I have to resend in the group chat and be like, “Did you listen to it?” Their opinions are incredibly important to me, and they’re the first people that will tell me if I’m being cringe.
IW: I think that’s what we rely on Maddi for the most. I’m always like, “Maddi, is this cool?” I’ll send her a TikTok and be like, “Should I post this?” And she’d say, ummm…
Have you been cringe recently?
SW: Well, no, obviously because I’m the cooler sister…
IW: Sure…
NR: Do you have any fond creative memories of growing up?
IW: Suki do you remember our big move was that you would do a headstand and, like, open your legs and I’d pop my head through.
SW: I would do a diamond.
IW: That was our grand finale move.
SW: But actually, we’re still sort of like that. Immy’s probably the most dramatic performance wise, still in front of the whole family. Immy will put on some music and fully do interpretive dance for the entire family, and have everyone in stitches. She hasn’t really grown out of that.
IW: Yeah, I’ve never quite grown out of the interpretive dance. It’s a good way to express tension or anything.
SW (laughing): If there’s family tension, you’ll just put on music… I feel like you’ll disassociate heavily, and then you put on a song, and you’ll just express.
IW: We definitely did do a lot of little dances and shows growing up. It was quite a big part of sisterhood. Suki would dress me up in Victorian clothes and pretend to be my mean teacher.
SW: Oh, I don’t remember that.
IW: Do you now?
SW: I mean, no, I don’t remember that.
IW: Victorians, actually, quite a lot.
SW: It’s funny the stuff you don’t remember. I feel like, with Maddi especially, because she’s eight years younger than me, she would come to me and Immy and just absolutely raid our wardrobes. I mean my flat in London has been completely pillaged.
IW: Ransacked.
SW: There’s really nothing left! But now we go to Maddi. But like all of my gorgeous old Burberry pieces from 15 years ago have all been pillaged and probably repurposed among her friends.
NR: I loved the costuming in “On This Love.” Can you tell me about the Playboy Bunny elements of it?
SW: I spent a lot of my childhood watching, like the girls from the Playboy Mansion, like Holly Madison, and I wanted this Bel Air, golf course, thing. Immy found this incredible house that looked like it was from the Playboy Mansion. I was like, Okay, what do I want to look like in this setting? We were talking about Pamela Anderson/MTV and that ’90s nostalgia. But it sort of started with… I don’t know why I was so obsessed with the idea of having prosthetic boobs. I was like, if we’re going to go there, I have to have big boobs. And also, I think I kind of missed them because when I was pregnant I had such big boobs, and now I don’t have them anymore. I was like, I need to go back there. I feel like… any excuse to have big boobs.
IW: We also wanted to lean into this kind of archetypal glamorous character.
NR: This question is more for Immy, though both of you are actresses, how do you feel acting informs your direction and vice versa?
IW: It’s such a different feeling being in front of the camera versus being behind it. It’s so easy to look at someone and be like, “Do this, do that.” But when you’re in front of the camera, you’re like, “Oh my God. Am I doing this right?” It definitely informs my process of directing, because I just have an understanding of that feeling. Especially with Suki. I think it only helps. Being in front of the camera before doing any directing has just made me a better director.
SW: For this video we had the main camera but then Immy also just walking around with a VHS camera while I was doing my hair and makeup. She would be like, “Tell me about how in love you are with this guy. Tell me why it’s the greatest love of all.”
IW: And then she starts speaking with an English accent and I’d be like, do it in American!
SW: No I didn’t!
NR: Suki, going back to the fake boobs Pam Anderson vibe.
SW: Wait… (talking to someone off screen) Mom. You have to get out of here!
NR: If she wants to be in the conversation!
SW: She’s like, rifling through the closet. I’m like, please, mom, could you shut the door?
IW: Be nice to mom.
NR: Do you still feel like a sparklemuffin? Or have we moved into a new way of feeling?
SW: No, I’m still the sparklemuffin. Obviously, my life has completely changed. But I knew that having a baby would be life altering. Yes, it is insane, and it’s hard, but I have this child that I have so much wonder towards. Becoming a mom is also a beautiful way to connect more with your family, you have this baby to share with them. I mean, I’m a year in… I’ve definitely written songs about this new experience that I’m having, but, I also still feel very much like myself.
NR: Do you see the woman in “Dream Woman” as an extension of the same character in “On This Love”?
SW: She’s very different. For “On This Love” I wanted to revisit that potency of yearning, which is somewhat part of my past. The song is extravagant and so dramatic. I was thinking about how much I used to, like, abandon myself to someone. It almost made me uncomfortable to think about, so I wanted to push the video into this different kind of satirical place, reflecting that uncomfortable feeling I have when I go back and think of myself at certain times. But also, I want to make it funny too, and ridiculous and push it. It’s been fun seeing people’s reactions. Some of my friends are like, “This is so fun and fabulous.” And some of my friends have been like, really, like, “I feel so sad for the girl.” I like doing something that makes people feel a lot of different ways.
IW: As a woman it’s hard to write your own narrative by yourself. You’re always going to be perceived by others. But the way people are reacting to this woman differently just shows that, no one really knows the story, you only know your own story.
NR: Do you relate to that feeling of being consumed by a love that nobody else understands?
IW: Oh yeah, like, “I’m going out with a rat.” A lot of us have definitely had that feeling of being so deeply obsessed with someone that’s just a wrongun or, even if they’re not, it just makes you lose yourself.
SW: But there’s also something so freeing in that. The woman in “On This Love” is just like, happy. She’s found her guy. Whatever the story is behind it, she’s happy. There’s something joyful about that.
IW: Where the song lyrics delve into the complexities of relationships and love a bit more, the video contrasts that with the pure joy of it all.
NR: Is there anything you want to say to each other?
IW: It’s a pleasure to work with you Suki.
SW: Thanks sis. I’m proud of what we’ve created.
IW: I am very proud of it too, and I couldn’t have done it with anyone else. Look! You’re getting British people to be, like, vulnerable with each other.
