NaomiWatts


Naomi Watts is an accomplished actress, working steadily in the US., England and Australia. She has worked with such directors as George Miller, Marshall Herskovitz, John Duigan and David Lynch.

Naomi Watts David Lynch with Naomi WattsShe recently completed the Showtime movie, The Outsider, directed by Randa Haines (director of Children of a Lesser God). Earlier in 2001, Watts produced and starred in the short film Ellie Parker, which screened in competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. The film is currently being developed as a feature film. Also, she received the Best Actress in Short Film Award from the Method Fest

Born in England, Watts moved to Australia at 14 and began acting while attending school. Her other film credits include Dangerous Beauty, Tank Girl, Wide Sargasso Sea and Flirting.

On television, she starred in the BBC drama The Wyvan Mystery, opposite Derek Jacobi and Iain Glen. She starred in the HBO movie, Persons Unknown opposite Joe Mantegna and Kelly Lynch, as well as Hunt for the Unicorn Killer for NBC.

from the Official Press Kit

 


Trivia

Naomi Watts has always regretted telling a journalist she had considered suicide before she had her big break - as she insists the comment was taken too literally. The 21 Grams star, 36, admits she was on the brink of dangerous depression during hard times as a struggling actress in Los Angeles, but was shocked when she realized the press had latched onto her comment. She previously told a reporter, "I remember driving along Mulholland Drive, thinking, 'Maybe I'll just go over the cliff because I can't take it anymore.'" However, Watts explains, "That wasn't literal. For the record, I am not a suicidal person. But I understand depression and I've lived it and I felt really badly when I read that and suddenly it's everywhere, 'Naomi Contemplating Suicide'.


David Lynch & Naomi Watts at Cannes (2001)Casting Trivia

"...nor was ABC happy about Lynch's lead actresses, Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. Usually, a show's producers audition at least fifty actors for each major role, and then bring their three top contenders in to read for the network, at which point the producers and the executives cast the show together. But Lynch casts by scrutinizing head-shot photographs and conducting interviews. Viewing actors as design elements, he often chooses unknowns with broad, blank faces.

"Sometimes the network can give too much respect to an artist," Tony Krantz said, "and ABC did that here, deferring to David without having any chance to see the actors read – to kick the tires. The actresses are fantastic-looking, fine talents, but they're a little old" – both are in their late twenties – "and ABC thinks Betty is too aw-shucks and Okie-from-Muskogee, and that at the beginning, after the accident, Rita looks kind of goofy."

theCityOfAbsurdity


How Naomi Watts got the part

Auditioning for Lynch was a relief simply because he doesn't audition the usual way. First, he casts not from seeing prior work but from looking at head shots, and he had selected four actresses to interview for the role. Watts was in New York at a reunion with her mother and brother when she got the call, and, aware of Lynch's idiosyncratic methods, she immediately cut an interval to return to Los Angeles.
Getting off the plane in her jeans, she went to meet Lynch, in a room with just him, casting director Johanna Ray and Ray's dog. "We just talked," she recalls happily. "We talked about family, we talked about everything but work." At the end of the meeting, he hugged her. She was asked to come back the next day "more glammed up," so she went to the hairdresser and put herself in a tight dress and heels. This time another relaxed conversation, but at his home. At the end of the meeting, he gave her the script. Two weeks later, she was offered the part.

Asked what he sensed about Watts that made him choose her, Lynch replies, "I saw someone that I felt had a tremendous talent, and I saw someone who had a beautiful soul, an intelligence - possibilities for a lot of different roles, so it was a beautiful full package."

L.A. Times


Articles:
Premiere Magazine, Decembre 2001 (french) 
Movieline, November 2001  
Interview, November 2001
The Seattle Times, October 14, 2001

Pages:
CelebrityWizard.com
Vanity Fair April 2002
It Quick-Change Artist  

Websites:
www.naomi-watts.net

Clips:
Short film "Never Date An Actress"

 

FILMOGRAPHY:

ROLE:

2007

Funny Games

Ann

Eastern Promises

Anna

2006

The Painted Veil

Kitty Fane

2005

King Kong

Ann Darrow

Stay

Lila Culpepper

The Ring 2

Rachel Keller

Ellie Parker

Ellie Parker

2004

I Heart Huckabees

Dawn Campbell

The Assassination of Richard Nixon

Marie Bicke

 

We Don't Live Here Anymore

Edith Evans

2003

21 Grams

Christina Peck

 

Le Divorce

Roxy

 

Ned Kelly

Julia Cook

2002

Rabbits

Suzie

 

Plots with a View

Meredith

 

Ring, The

Rachel Keller

2001

Mulholland Dr.

Betty / Diane 

 

Down

Jennifer Evans

 

Ellie Parker

Ellie Parker

1999

Strange Planet

Alice

1998

House Divided, A

Amanda

 

Dangerous Beauty

Guila De Lezze

1997

Under the Lighthouse Dancing

Louise

1996

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering

Grace Rhodes

 

Persons Unknown

Molly

1995

Tank Girl

Jet Girl

1993

Custodian, The

Louise

 

Gross Misconduct

Jennifer Carter

 

Wide Sargasso Sea

Fanny Grey

 

Matinee

Shopping Cart Starlet

1991

Flirting

Janet Odgers

1986

For Love Alone

Leo's Girlfriend