Naomi Watts
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Watts was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England, where she lived until the age of eight. Her parents, Peter and Myfanwy Watts had 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 the town of Llangefni (more especifically Llanfawr Farm, a district of Llangefni), in Northern Wales, where they lived with Naomi's grandparents, Hugh and Nikki Roberts, although her mother occasionally moved the family around Wales and England, usually to follow boyfriends, but she always ended up returning to Llangefni. She lived there until she was 14. Then, during a trip to Australia, her mother became convinced that there was "the land of opportunities" and moved the family to Sydney in 1982. Her grandmother, Nikki, was Australian, which made it easier to obtain the documentation necessary, since Naomi and her family were entitled to Australian citizenship.
Her father was a sound engineer with Pink Floyd and her mother is described by Watts as a hippie "with passive-aggressive tendencies" who used to threaten to send her and her brother to foster care in order to convince her grandparents to take care of the family, since her mother had no money after her father's passing.
In Sydney, she 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). In 1986 she took a break from acting and went to Japan to work as a model, but the experience was fruitless, and Watts describes it as one of the worst periods of her life, which lasted for about four months. Upon returning to Australia, Watts 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 completely to making it as an actress.
She first appeared in television commercials and then the drama series Home and Away in 1988 in the role of Julie Gibson. Her first big break came with the 1995 movie Tank Girl with the part of Jet Girl.
In 2001, Watts appeared in David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., a performance which won high praise but failed to gain her an Academy Award nomination. The quality and size of Watts' roles improved after Mulholland Dr., and she starred in the highly successful US remake of The Ring, a Japanese horror movie. In 2004 she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film 21 Grams.
Filmography
- For Love Alone (1986)
- Home and Away (1988) (television series)
- Flirting (1991)
- Brides of Christ (1991) (television mini-series)
- Matinee (1993)
- Wide Sargasso Sea (1993)
- Gross Misconduct (1993)
- The Custodian (1993)
- Tank Girl (1995)
- Bermuda Triangle (1996)
- Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)
- Timepiece (1996)
- Persons Unknown (1996)
- Under the Lighthouse Dancing (1997)
- Sleepwalkers (1997) (television series)
- Dangerous Beauty (1998)
- Babe: Pig in the City (1998)
- The Christmas Wish (1998)
- A House Divided (1998)
- The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer (1999)
- Strange Planet (1999)
- The Wyvern Mystery (2000)
- Ellie Parker (2001)
- Down (2001)
- Mulholland Dr. (2001)
- The Ring (2002)
- Plots with a View (2002)
- The Outsider (2002)
- Rabbits (2002)
- Ned Kelly (2003)
- Le Divorce (2003)
- 21 Grams (2003)
- We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004) …. Edith Evans
- Assassination of Richard Nixon, The (2004) …. Marie Byck
- I Heart Huckabees (2004) …. Dawn Campbell
- Stay (http://www.up4u.net/cms/go.php?pagename=Movie/Stay) (2004) …. Lila Culpepper
- The Ring Two (2004) …. Rachel Keller
- Anymore (http://www.up4u.net/cms/go.php?pagename=Movie/Anymore) (2004) …
- King Kong (2005) …. Ann Darrow
External links
- Template:Imdb name
- Naomi Watts Experience (http://www.naomiwatts.com/) fan site
- Actress Profile: Naomi Watts (http://www.up4u.net/naomi_watts/)