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).[1][2][3] 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.[4] Watts has one brother, Ben Watts, a year older and now a photographer in the United States (Watts 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.[5]
Watts at the London Film Festival in October 2007
Watts at the London Film Festival in October 2007
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. Then, during a trip to Australia, her mother became convinced it was "the land of opportunities"[citation needed] and moved the family 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 has 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 never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot".[6]
In Sydney, Watts attended several acting schools (and in the very first lesson in the first school, she met Nicole Kidman, with whom she shared a taxi home from class and are still best friends).[citation needed] 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 did not have the physical requirements for a professional runway model and could only hope to be working in promotions, which did not 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. She only returned to acting when a casual invitation from a colleague to participate in a small play rekindled her passion for the scenic arts and prompted her to quit her job and dedicate herself to succeeding as an actress.
[edit] 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 Children of the Corn IV. Gradually, Watts garnered supporting roles, such as Dangerous Beauty.
Watts with filmmaker David Lynch at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001.
Watts with filmmaker David Lynch at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001.
In 2001, Watts starred in David Lynch's highly acclaimed Mulholland Drive. The film, which premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, earned Watts mixed reactions amongst critics, with some doubtful of the believability of her acting. However, she won 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. It was her performance opposite Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro in director Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams that earned Watts her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress.
She produced and starred in the well-received independent picture 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 I ♥ Huckabees, and starred in the sequel to the Ring, The Ring Two. Aside from balancing both independent projects as Ellie Parker, she managed to star in the biggest remake of them all, 2005's King Kong. The role, which was immortalized by Fay Wray in the original, proved to be Watts' most commercial film yet. Directed 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 has starred in so many remakes, and she is scheduled to star in the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).[7]
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.[8] On the next day, representatives of Watts, Townsend and Fiennes said that the rumors were not true.[9]
[edit] Personal life
Watts with her partner Liev Schreiber
Watts with her partner Liev Schreiber
Watts previously dated director Daniel Kirby, playwright Jeff Smeenge, director Stephen Hopkins and actor Heath Ledger for a couple years, her co-star in the film Ned Kelly. Since spring 2005, Watts has dated actor Liev Schreiber. They co-starred in The Painted Veil. The couple's son, Alexander Pete, was born on July 26, 2007 in Los Angeles.[10]
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 am not a strict Buddhist or anything yet. There was a lot of excitement and energy there".[11]
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