From famous BFs to wild parties & making her own record – how Suki Waterhouse is a hit in Amazon’s Daisy Jones & The Six
SUKI WATERHOUSE knows a thing or two about the wild living and heartache that dominates her hot new television series Daisy Jones & The Six.
The actress and supermodel recently told of the “colossal heartbreak” she suffered in her early 20s when a famous ex-boyfriend went off with another beautiful woman.
Suki, now 31, said: “I was kind of depressed for a while.
“You constantly read about how much more beautiful the new girlfriend is, or whatever.
“That sounds silly, but when you’re actually the one that’s heartbroken, it’s pretty rough.”
The new drama, on Amazon Prime Video, is inspired by the wild excesses and painful bust-ups in the rollercoaster story of Fleetwood Mac, the mega-selling rock band whose 1977 album Rumours has shifted 40million copies worldwide.
Suki’s character, Karen Sirko, is loosely based on the band’s keyboard player Christine McVie, who died last November aged 79.
Christine, who was married to Mac bassist John McVie, wrote the Rumours tracks Don’t Stop, Songbird, Oh Daddy and You Make Loving Fun — which was about her romance with the band’s lighting director, Curry Grant.
She and John divorced in 1976, the year before Rumours came out.
As for Suki’s heartbreak, she tactfully avoided naming the man in question, but she may have been referring to her two-year fling with A-list actor Bradley Cooper.
After they split in spring 2015 he started seeing Ronaldo’s ex, Russian supermodel Irina Shayk.
Live out her rock ’n’ roll dreams
These days though, Suki, whose romantic links have also included actors Diego Luna, Richard Madden, James Marsden and musician Miles Kane, is settled with Batman star Robert Pattinson.
The former It girl — who once hosted a raucous vodka party where the guests included Prince Harry and Margot Robbie — has also turned her back on all-nighters.
Suki said: “I’m definitely not living like a rock star.”
But she has been able to live out her rock ’n’ roll dreams in the new ten-part drama, which also stars Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough and Hunger Games actor Sam Claflin.
And playing a musician has inspired Suki to launch her own music career.
Last year she released her debut album, I Can’t Let Go, on Sub Pop records, the label associated with grunge rockers Nirvana, and she is now on a world tour that includes three festivals this month.
Suki had never played a keyboard before being cast in the show, but along with the rest of the cast she learned to play so they could perform together.
And she said taking piano lessons for three hours a day for three months encouraged her to make her first record.
Her decision to be a solo artist rather than join a band seems wise, judging by Fleetwood Mac’s story.
Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks, who were in a relationship before they joined the well-established group in 1974, split up before Rumours was made.
Founding member and drummer Mick Fleetwood, who was married, then hooked up with Stevie during a break from touring.
John and Christine McVie rarely spoke a word to each other while recording and a generally bad atmosphere fuelled by a reliance on cocaine, alcohol and the addictive sedative Quaalude sometimes escalated into physical violence.
Stevie’s cocaine-snorting became so bad that it dissolved a hole in her septum, the skin that divides the nostrils, and Mick confessed to snorting up £7million worth of the illegal drug.
The feuds simmered on, even after the classic line-up reformed in 1997, and Lindsey was fired in 2018.
The fictionalised Amazon drama, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid, centres on the tension between guitarist and vocalist Billy Dunne (Claflin) whose ego is badly bruised by the decision to let Daisy Jones (Keough) join “his” group.
Like Fleetwood Mac, a seminal album is made in 1977, but things soon start to fall apart.
Surprisingly, Riley didn’t have any singing experience before she signed up for the TV series.
As the granddaughter of The King of Rock ’n’ Roll it seems fair to expect her to have strong vocal cords.
But she said: “I auditioned like everybody else, and lied to them and told them I could sing.”
And Riley was relieved that Sam was no better than her.
She said: “We sang and I was thinking, ‘Oh yay, we’re both awful’.”
Sam was equally aware of his shortcomings in front of a microphone.
He said: “There was so much self-doubt and feeling like I was crap.”
There were 24 original songs written for the series by producer and solo artist Blake Mills, which were recorded by the cast.
Suki also got to work with singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Marcus Mumford — lead singer of Mumford & Sons ) during the production.
Suki recalled of her music lessons: “I was really a beginner.
“I bought a lot of stickers off Amazon and had C, D, stuck all the way up the piano.”
But impressively, the cast soon learned to play, and she continued: “Suddenly we had recordings.
“I was so taken aback when we were doing a scene, the record would come on and it would sound so incredible.
“I said the other day, ‘Can you believe this is our actual record?’ It blows my mind.”
The glamorous show required 1,500 costume changes for the main cast and filming took place in New Orleans, the Greek island of Hydra and Los Angeles.
Suki added: “I was lucky, because I had Christine McVie to draw inspiration from.
‘Agents told models not to wear pants’
“When you think of English keyboardists in a famous band, that’s the first person that comes to mind.”
For almost 14 years from 1999 Christine quit the music scene and stayed out of public view — and in recent years Suki has also attempted to live a quieter life.
Having started modelling at the age of 16, the daughter of a wealthy plastic surgeon found the fashion world to be an unsafe work place for a young woman.
Suki was told that she wouldn’t get any more work unless she lost weight, and she was sent on photoshoots with some highly suspect photographers.
She said: “I remember hearing of them telling agents to tell the girls to not wear pants or something like that.
“For the agents to not really care about that kind of comment is indicative of where it was at then.”
For the past five years Suki has been seeing Twilight actor Robert, 36, who had dated a string of beautiful women including former former co-star Kristen Stewart.
They kept the romance under wraps, not appearing together at red-carpet events until the end of last year.
The British stars were then spotted cuddling up at a Dior fashion show in December and Suki has now spoken about their romance.
She said: “I’m shocked that I’m so happy with someone for nearly five years.”
They have shared a London home since 2020 and have been seen out and about with their close friends, superstar singer Taylor Swift and her actor boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
Robert, who was previously engaged to singer FKA Twigs, is a big music fan and is supportive of Suki’s new ambitions.
Even so, she joked that her attempt to learn Light My Fire, by The Doors, for Daisy Jones & The Six was possibly too much for him to live with.
She said: “That song haunts Rob now.
“He heard me play that for hours and hours.
“He had ear muffs on in the corner, he was about to leave me.”
Suki, who is close friends with fellow models Cara Delevingne and Georgia May Jagger, was self-conscious about launching her own music career.
She said: “It was something that I desperately wanted to do.
“For probably the last four years, as I was putting out these singles, I guess I was testing my own courage and whether or not people would like it.
“I’ve been writing for a long time, but it’s like the reality of it happening I was unsure about.
“If you’ve been a model before, people will think that you’re dead inside.”
- Daisy Jones & The Six is on Prime Video from today.