Born:
September 28, 1968
in
Shoreham, Kent
Best Known For:
Playing Betty in Mulholland Drive.
Early-life:
Naomi Ellen Watts was born in Shoreham, Kent on September 28, 1968. Her parents divorced when she was four and she moved across South East England with her mother. Naomi's parents reconciled but, two years later, her father died. Following his death, Naomi moved around England and Wales before settling in Sydney, Australia when she was 14, where her mother enrolled her in acting lessons. Naomi wanted to become an actress after watching the film Fame (1980). She auditioned for many TV adverts and got her first film role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi tried to become a model at 18 and signed to a model agency that sent her to Japan. After failing several auditions, she returned to Sydney and worked in advertising for a department store and later as an assistant fashion editor for the magazine Follow Me. She decided to quit her job and pursue acting after participating in a drama workshop.
Career:
While living in Australia, Watts appeared in such films as Flirting (1991), Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and Gross Misconduct (1993) as well as the soap opera Home and Away. She then moved to America but struggled early on in her career to land work. Watts got a supporting role in Tank Girl (1995) but it flopped at the box office. She then appeared in a number of largely forgotten films and TV programmes before getting her breakthrough in Mulholland Drive (2001). Following this, she landed the lead role in The Ring (2002) and then 21 Grams (2003). Her first comedy was I Heart Huckabees (2004). The next year, she appeared as Ann Darrow in King Kong (2005) and reprised her role as Rachel for The Ring 2 (2005). Watts then went on to appear in The Painted Veil (2006), Funny Games (2007), The International (2009) and The Impossible (2012). She also produced The Painted Veil and Funny Games. More recently, Watts appeared in the second film from the Divergent Series, Insurgent (2015), as well as Demolition (2015), Chuck (2016) and the Netflix drama series Gypsy. She was also executive producer for Gypsy.
Quote:
"If I have to produce movies, direct movies, whatever to change the way Hollywood treats older women, I'll do it. If I have to bend the rules, I will. If I have to break them, I will."
Trivia:
She was Oscar-nominated for best actress for The Impossible and 21 Grams.