Everything about Naomi Watts totally explained
Naomi Ellen Watts (born
September 28,
1968) is an
English-
Australian actress. She is known for her roles in
Mulholland Drive, the film remakes of
The Ring,
King Kong and most recently
Funny Games, as well as her
Academy Award-nominated role in the film
21 Grams.
Biography
Early life
Watts was born in
Shoreham, Kent,
England, the daughter of Myfannwy "Miv" (
née Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume and set designer, and Peter Watts, a road manager and sound engineer who worked with
Pink Floyd (her father's manic laugh and mother's comment about "cruisin' for a bruisin'" are featured in Pink Floyd's
The Dark Side of the Moon). Watts is pictured, in her mother's arms, with her father, brother, Pink Floyd, and other crew members, in the hardback edition of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason' autobiography of the band
Inside Out.
Watts has one brother,
Ben Watts, a year older and now a photographer in the United States (she confessed that they fought like cats and dogs as children).
Watts' parents separated when she was four years old, and when she was seven, her father died. Following her father's death, her mother relocated the family to Llanfawr Farm, on the Isle of
Anglesey in North
Wales, where they lived with Watts' maternal grandparents, Nikki and Hugh Roberts.
Watts described her mother as a
hippie "with
passive-aggressive tendencies" and no money, who used to threaten to send her and her brother to
foster care in order to get her parents to provide for them. Although her mother occasionally moved the family around Wales and England, usually to follow boyfriends, she always ended up returning to Llangefni. Watts lived there until she was 14. The family moved to
Sydney in 1982. Her grandmother was Australian, which made it easier to obtain the documentation necessary, since Naomi and her family were entitled to Australian citizenship. Of her nationality, she's said, "I consider myself
British and have very happy memories of the
UK. I spent the first 14 years of my life in
England and
Wales and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot".
In Sydney, Watts attended several acting schools, including
North Sydney Girls High School, where her classmates included
Nicole Kidman, with whom she's still close. In 1986 she took a break from acting and went to
Japan to work as a
model, but the experience, which lasted for about four months, was fruitless as Watts didn't have the physical requirements for a professional runway model and could only hope to be working in promotions, which didn't excite her. Watts describes it as one of the worst periods of her life. Upon returning to Australia, she went to work for a local
department store and from there she went to work as assistant fashion editor with an Australian fashion magazine. A casual invitation to participate in a drama
workshop rekindled her passion for acting, and prompted her to quit her job and dedicate herself to succeeding as an actress.
Career
Watts' career began in
Australian television, where she appeared in commercials and television
melodramas such as
Home and Away and
Brides of Christ. She was featured in a supporting role in the acclaimed 1991 Australian indie film
Flirting, which starred future Hollywood up-and-comers
Nicole Kidman and
Thandie Newton. As Watts made the transition from Australia to the United States, she landed a supporting role in the cult
1995 film
Tank Girl, playing the part of "Jet Girl".
Finding quality roles in the
Hollywood system at first proved difficult for Watts. She appeared in the short-lived series
Sleepwalkers and numerous B-list productions such as films like . Gradually, Watts garnered supporting roles in films such as
Dangerous Beauty.
In 2001 Naomi starred in The Shaft directed by Dick Maas which earned nothing but rotten tomatoes.
In 2001, Watts starred in
David Lynch's highly acclaimed
Mulholland Drive. The film, which premiered at the 2001
Cannes Film Festival, won her the National Society of Film Critics Award as Best Actress and the National Board of Review award as Breakthrough Performance of the year.
Watts worked with
director/
screenwriter Scott Coffey on Lynch's
Mulholland Drive, where Watts had her breakout performance. Her next film, the semi-autobiographical
Ellie Parker, grew out of the friendship forged between Watts and Coffey. In 2002, she starred in one of the biggest box office hits of that year, the English language remake of the
Japanese horror film The Ring. The following year, she starred in the film
Ned Kelly opposite
Heath Ledger,
Orlando Bloom, and
Geoffrey Rush; as well as the
Merchant-Ivory film
Le Divorce with
Kate Hudson. Her performance opposite
Sean Penn and
Benicio del Toro in director
Alejandro González Iñárritu's
21 Grams earned Watts her first
Academy Award nomination as
Best Actress.
She produced and starred in the well-received independent film
We Don't Live Here Anymore. She reunited with Sean Penn and
Don Cheadle in
The Assassination of Richard Nixon, teamed up with
Jude Law and
Dustin Hoffman in
David O. Russell's ensemble comedy
I ♥ Huckabees, and starred in the sequel to
the Ring,
The Ring Two. She then starred in the much-anticipated remake of
King Kong (2005). The role, which was immortalized by
Fay Wray in
the original film, proved to be Watts' most commercially successful film yet. Helmed by
The Lord of the Rings director
Peter Jackson, the film won high praise and
grossed $550 million worldwide.
Watts starred in
The Painted Veil with
Edward Norton and
Liev Schreiber, released in
December 2006. She has since finished the films
Funny Games (a remake of an Austrian movie) with
Tim Roth and
Eastern Promises with
Viggo Mortensen.
The press has labeled her the "queen of remakes" because she's starred in so many remakes, and she's scheduled to star in the remake of
Alfred Hitchcock's
The Birds (1963). Watts will only state that there have been "discussions" about the "The Birds" remake.
In
May 2006, Watts was named a special representative to the
U.N. program for
HIV/
AIDS.
On
July 24 2007,
The Courier-Mail reported that Naomi Watts had been cast as
Narcissa Malfoy in
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with
Stuart Townsend and
Joseph Fiennes, the younger brother of
Ralph Fiennes (
Lord Voldemort), also being cast in unspecified roles. On the next day, representatives of Watts, Townsend and Fiennes said that the rumors were not true.
Personal life
Watts previously dated director Daniel Kirby, playwright Jeff Smeenge, director
Stephen Hopkins and
Heath Ledger, her co-star in the film
Ned Kelly. Since spring 2005, Watts has dated actor
Liev Schreiber. The couple's son, Alexander Pete, was born on
July 26 2007 in
Los Angeles.
Watts is a close friend of
Benicio del Toro, with whom she co-starred in
21 Grams. After filming
The Painted Veil, she converted to
Buddhism, claiming, "I have some belief but I'm not a strict Buddhist or anything yet. There was a lot of excitement and energy there".
Filmography
Television
Further Information
Get more info on 'Naomi Watts'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://naomi_watts.totallyexplained.com">Naomi Watts Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
)