{babes} Watts gets rough in 'Fair Game'

NEW YORK -- Seven years after famously being revealed as an undercover CIA operative, Valerie Plame's story is hitting the big screen.

Naomi Watts plays the blue-eyed, blond spy in director Doug Liman's new political thriller, Fair Game.

The 42-year-old actress was Liman's top pick to play the secret agent, he told reporters at a New York news conference to promote the film, which opens in select Canadian cities on Friday.

But Watts, busy with her newborn baby, wasn't keen on taking on a new role. Then the script, by screenwriter friend Jezz Butterworth, landed on her doorstep.

"Of course, he was smart," said the actress. "You couldn't just read 10 pages of that script."

In fact, she read it in one sitting.

"Ten days later she was in my office, nursing her child," said Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr & Mrs Smith), recounting how he asked whether he should leave the room.

"We're going to do a movie together so you better get used to it," Watts had replied.

But Liman thought the star, still breastfeeding when filming began two months later, wasn't ready to play Plame's tough-cookie character.

"She was way too soft and maternal," he said. And so he sent the actress to a real CIA training centre in Virginia to toughen her up.

"I rammed cars without a seat belt or helmet," Watts recalled. "I set off explosives. As I walked in, they kicked me in the shins and threw me on the ground."

When she said 'Ouch' she was told she better not say it again unless she was hurt enough to need to go to hospital.

"There is one thing (I did) I'm not even allowed to talk about," she admitted about her time at the spy boot camp.

But the harsh treatment seemed to work. "She came back from it, it was night and day," Liman said.

"So don't mess with me," Watts chimed in.

Plame made headlines across the U.S. when she was exposed as a spy in a 2003 media leak. 'The Plame Affair' eventually led to the trial and conviction of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, a former chief of staff to then U.S. vice president Dick Cheney. In 2005, Libby was sentenced to 30 months in jail for his role in the affair.

In 2003, the 47-year-old spy had been working for the CIA for 18 years and was in charge of a probe into possible weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq.

Meanwhile, her husband, diplomat Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), was waging a war of words against the Bush administration.

In a 2003 editorial in the New York Times, Wilson accused Washington of manipulating his intelligence reports debunking the theory Iraq was seeking nuclear materials in Africa. Wilson claimed the government was using the reports to justify the invasion.

Soon after, Plame's identity was leaked to the media, allegedly by senior administration officials. The ensuing scandal ended her career and destroyed her personal life.

Liman found Plame's story fascinating.

"She (was one of) the most secret employees of the CIA," said the filmmaker. "Millions are spent crafting their covert identities. They take their secrets to the grave, they save lives and countries but never brag about it. It's almost a monk's existence."

Watts didn't have much time to research the character she was playing and said she was leery around Plame, who worked as a consultant for the film.

"She's someone truly impressive to meet, I was nervous," she said. "She was very reserved, controlled and quiet, she's not easy to read, and you don't get her all at once. Finally, it was crunch time and I confronted her with a list of personal questions -- I wanted to have her mindset, how was she so unbelievably consistent through it all."

The two women are still in touch and Plame and Wilson walked the red carpet at the film's New York premiere.

Despite Fair Game's political thriller aspect, Liman said he also wanted to explore the couple's emotional life and marriage during the legal and political pressure cooker.

But does tackling the modern political drama make him nervous about being sued?

"It was really important to me to stay true to the facts as they were known publicly through court files and testimonies," he said.

"That was enough. We stuck to the people who were either convicted of crimes or that the justice department investigations identified. That didn't come from a fear of being sued because the best publicity this movie could get is if Karl Rove (a top adviser to former president Bush) were to sue us. He's a good strategist and knows that."