Actor Emily Watson has revealed that growing up in the School of Philosophy and Economic Science, a London-based organisation she describes as a religious cult, nearly prevented her from taking the role that launched her career in Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves". Speaking at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where she is jury president and receiving an honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award, the Oscar-nominated star described being strictly discouraged from pursuing the part and credited acting with "saving her life" after leaving the group.

Watson said members of the organisation, which promotes conservative values and strict traditional gender and sexual ethics, summoned her and told her "in no uncertain terms" not to take the role after learning of the film's content. The 1996 drama, which premiered at Cannes and earned Watson her first Oscar nomination, cast her as Bess McNeill, a woman in a repressed religious community in Scotland whose lover's accident leads her into a sexual journey defying her community's moral code. Watson said it took her a "lifetime" to process her upbringing, but she now recognises striking parallels between her own life and the character that made her famous.