Naomi Watts, who started her career as a model and later turned into an actress, attracted attention after her outstanding performances in Australian television series and managed to become one of the most successful names in Hollywood, and her curious life.
Her full name is Naomi Ellen Watts, she was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, Kent, England. She was born to her mother, the antiques dealer, costume and set designer Myfanwy (Miv) Edwards Roberts, and her father, the road manager and sound engineer Peter Watts. Watts, whose parents divorced when she was four years old, has an older brother named Ben Watts.
Watts toured South East England several times with her older brother and mother. Her father left his job in 1974 and remarried two years later. Her father was found dead in August 1976 of a heroin overdose in a home in Notting Hill.
After her death, her mother moved the family to Llanfawr Farm in the town of Llangefni on the island of Anglesey, where they lived for three years with Watts' maternal grandparents, Nikki and Hugh Roberts. Before this time, her mother remarried. Watts attended Ysgol Gyfun Llangefni, a Welsh secondary school, where she studied Welsh and later moved to Suffolk, where she attended Thomas Mills High School. Then Watts decided she wanted to become an actress after watching the 1980's youth musical drama "Fame."
In 1982 Watts moved to Sydney, Australia, with her mother, older brother and stepfather. After her mother moved, she returned to the cinema and stage industry and started working. Around that time, Watts was enrolled in acting classes by her mother and auditioned for numerous television commercials, where she met and befriended actress Nicole Kidman. Watts made her acting debut in Margaret Fink's 1986 drama film "For Love Alone," based on the novel of the same name by Christina Stead.
Watts, who attended Mosman High School and North Sydney High School for Girls in Australia, did not graduate from school. She later also worked as a journalist and ran a Delicacies store on the North Shore of Sydney. Deciding to become a model at the age of 18, Watts signed a contract with a model agency that sent her to Japan. However, she returned to Sydney after failing the audition. There, Watts, who worked in advertising for a department store, was hired as assistant fashion editor for "Follow Me" magazine. Being invited to a drama workshop, she inspired her to quit her job and pursue an acting career.
Watts, whose career began on television, appeared in commercials for a short time. Later, she starred in two episodes of the fourth season of the Australian sitcom "Hey Dad!". After five years away from the movies, Watts met director John Duigan and was invited to take a supporting role in the 1991 comedy drama film "Flirting." While the film received critical acclaim, it was ranked by film critic Roger Ebert in its list of the 10 best films of 1992. She also appeared in a recurring role in the award-winning TV mini-series "Brides of Christ" and the soap opera "Home and Away" in 1991.
Watts later decided to move to America, deciding to pursue her career further. She had a small role in the 1993 movie "Matinee" starring John Goodman. She then returned to Australia to appear in three Australian films on a temporary basis. These; she got her first lead role in the movie "Wide Sargasso Sea", the drama "The Custodian" and the thriller "Gross Misconduct". Watts later returned to the United States, and her initial efforts met with disappointment. She had difficulty in finding an agency, director and producer, and her financial situation was not going well.
She later got a supporting role in the 1995 science fiction film "Tank Girl." Although the film was met with mixed reviews and became a cult classic, it did not do well at the box office. For the rest of the decade, she appeared mostly in supporting roles in films. In 1997, she appeared in "Under the Lighthouse Dancing" with Jack Thompson and Jacqueline McKenzie. She also starred in the short-lived science fiction television series "Sleepwalkers". The following year, she appeared in a supporting role in the TV Christmas drama film "The Christmas Wish" and the biographical drama film "Dangerous Beauty." In 2000, Watts co-starred with Derek Jacobi, Jack Davenport and Iain Glen in the BBC TV movie "The Wyvern Mystery", an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Most of her early career was filled with missing major roles in movies.
In 1999, director David Lynch began auditioning for the psychological thriller "Mulholland Drive." Lynch sent Watts an offer for the lead role. Originally conceived as a pilot for a television series, Lynch had shot most of it in February 1999. However, after the pilot was rejected, it was made into a feature film. Premiering at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, the film received critical acclaim and marked the breakthrough of Watts' career. She won numerous awards and nominations for her performance, including the Best Actress Award.
In 2002, she starred as Rachel Keller in the psychological supernatural horror film "The Ring" directed by Gore Verbinski, which was one of the biggest box office hits of that year. The film was also successful at the box office, receiving positive reviews. Her performance was praised by critics. The following year, she appeared in Gregor Jordan's Australian film "Ned Kelly" with Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush. She also played the character of Roxeanne de Persand in the romantic comedy-drama film "Le Divorce" based on the novel of the same name. The film was met with mixed reviews.
In the same year, she played the character of Cristina Peck, with Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, in the drama film "21 Grams" directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. She earned multiple award nominations for her performance, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 2004, Watts appeared with Mark Ruffalo in the independent drama film "Don't Live Here Anymore." She also reunited with Sean Penn to play the wife of the president's assassin, Samuel Byck, in the drama "The Assassination of Richard Nixon."
She then starred in the semi-autobiographical drama film "Ellie Parker" (2005), which depicts the struggle of an Australian actress in Hollywood. Screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, the film continued as a short film that expanded into a feature-length production over the next four years. Film critics praised Watts' performance.
Watts reprized her role in the sequel "The Ring Two" (2005). The film grossed hugely worldwide, despite a negative critical response. In 2005, Watts starred as Ann Darrow in a remake of Peter Jackson's adventure monster movie "King Kong." Proving to be Watts' most successful film, the film received high praise and was a huge commercial success worldwide. Alongside the movie, she reprized the role of Darrow in the video game adaptation, and her vocal performance was widely praised. Additionally, she earned a nomination for the Spike Video Game Award for Best Female Performance. Her other 2005 film was "Stay," a psychological thriller directed by Marc Forster, starring alongside Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling, and Bob Hoskins.
The following year, she was cast as one of the leading roles in the romantic drama film "The Painted Veil" (2006), with Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber. Watts appeared with Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg in the gangster film "Promises of the East" (2007). The film was a commercial success, grossing worldwide. She also co-produced and starred in Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" (2007), a remake of the movie of the same name, as a mother held hostage by a pair of sociopathic teenagers with her family.
After a brief hiatus, Watts returned to acting in 2009 and starred in the political action thriller "The International" alongside Clive Owen. The film was a moderate commercial success for its production budget. Later, she starred in the drama film "Mother and Child", where she played the role of a lawyer who never knew her biological mother. Her performance earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the Australian Film Institute Awards and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her next movie was as Sally in the comedy-drama movie "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" written and directed by Woody Allen. Premiering at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, the film grossed more than US$26 million. She was later seen playing the character of Valerie Plame in the biographical thriller "Fair Game" alongside Sean Penn. She earned a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance. In 2011, she appeared with Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz in the psychological horror film "Dream House" directed by Jim Sheridan. In the same year, she met with Leonardo Dicaprio in the biographical drama film "J.Edgar" directed by Clint Eastwood. While the first film failed, the second was more positively received.
Watts landed the lead role as Maria Bennett in "The Impossible," a disaster drama film based on the true story of María Belón. The film was a critical success and became the highest-grossing high-end opening for a film in Spain. For her performance, Watts earned nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress.
She appeared in the drama film "Adoration"(2013) as two childhood friends who fall in love with Robin Wright and each other's sons. While the film received mixed reviews from critics, her performance won the FCCA Best Actress Award in 2014. She then acted as a couple with Matt Dillon in Laurie Collyer's independent drama film "Sunlight Jr."(2013). Watts played the lead role in Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Diana" (2013), a biographical drama about the last two years of Diana, Princess of Wales. The movie, which was released with much controversy given its subject, was a critical failure.
She also appeared in the dark comedy-drama film "Birdman or (The Virtue of Unexpected Ignorance)" (2014), directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, as the actress of a play assembled by a pale Hollywood actor. The film received widespread acclaim and won four awards at the 87th Academy Awards. Watts and the other actors won the Screen Actors Guild Award for best casting in a motion picture. Another movie came with her acting as a Russian prostitute in the comedy-drama called "St.Vincent". She learned Watts' Russian accent by spending time with Russian women over a six-week period. Her performance received mixed reviews from critics and earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. In the same year, she acted with Ben Stiller in the comedy-drama movie "While We Young". Watts and Stiller were praised for their on-screen chemistry in the film.
Watts starred as rebel leader Evelyn Johnson-Eaton in the dystopian science fiction action movie "Insurgent" (2015), the second film in the Divergent Series, based on the best-selling young adult novel of the same name by Veronica Roth. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the film was a commercial success, grossing $274.5 million worldwide. Watts reprise her role in "Allegiant," the third movie in the series. The film was released on March 18, 2016 and was met with negative reviews and lackluster box office sales.
Watts co-starred with Matthew McConaughey in Gus van Sant's mystery drama film "The Sea of Trees" as the wife of an American man who attempts suicide in the "suicide forest" of Mount Fuji. The film, which premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, was heavily criticized by both critics and audiences.
That same year, she co-starred with Jake Gyllenhaal in the comedy-drama film "Demolition" directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, received mixed reviews. Also around this time, she appeared in the comedy-drama "3 Generations" directed by Gaby Dellal, as the mother of a young transgender man, with Susan Sarandon and Elle Fanning. The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, was subject to mixed and average reviews.
Watts played Linda, the second wife of heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner, in the biographical sports drama film "The Bleeder" (2016). The film was also met with generally positive responses. She then played a psychologist in the psychological horror thriller "Shut In"(2016), directed by Farren Blackburn. While the film received largely negative reviews, it did not find success at the box office. The following year, she starred in "Twin Peaks," a limited-event television series and a sequel to the 1990 show of the same name. It managed to garner critical acclaim.
Later, Watts appeared in the Netflix drama web series "Gypsy" (2017) as a therapist who begins to develop dangerous and intimate relationships with the people in her patients' lives. She also served as one of the executive producers of she. In the same year, she got one of the leading roles in the drama thriller "The Book of Henry"(2017). Her performance in the film was found to be "excellent". Her other 2017 movie came when she appeared alongside Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson in the film adaptation of the best-selling memoir of the same name, "The Glass Castle."
In the following years, she starred in the drama movie "Penguin Bloom" and was part of a large cast in the science fiction action movie "Boos Level". While the first film received mixed reviews, it won several awards and nominations. The second film received similarly mixed and average reviews. Later, she starred in the drama movie "This Is the Night" (2021). In 2022, Watts appeared as Nora Brannock on Netflix's mystery thriller TV series "The Watcher" alongside Bobby Cannavale.
In the same year, she appeared in the drama adventure movie "Infinite Storm" directed by Małgorzata Szumowska, with Billy Howle, Denis O'Hare, Parker Sawyers and Eliot Sumner. The film, which received mixed reviews from critics, was not successful at the box office. She later got the lead role in the psychological horror movie "Goodnight Mommy" (2022), directed by Matt Sobel. While Watts' performance was praised, the film received mixed reviews from critics.
Finally, it has been rumored that she will appear as Babe Paley in the documentary drama TV series "Feud" directed by Gus Van Sant.
Personal life
Watts was in a relationship with Australian actor Heath Ledger from August 2002 to May 2004. In 2005, she started a relationship with American actor Liev Schreiber. The couple's first child, son Alexander 'Sasha' Pete, was born in 2007. Then, the couple's second son, Samuel Kai, was born in 2008. The couple announced their separation on September 26, 2016. Since 2017, Watts has been with American actor Billy Crudup. Watts, who is a vegetarian, said she converted to Buddhism in 2006.
Watts made a deal with the David Yurman jewellery. She served as ambassador for Thierry Mugler's 'Angel' fragrance from 2008 to 2011. In 2014, she was announced as a new face of L'Oréal company. She also founded the skincare company "Onda Beauty" in 2016 and took part in a campaign for the luxury fashion house Fendi in 2020. In January 2021, it was announced that it was an investor in "Thirteen Lune," an e-commerce site focused on makeup, skincare, haircare and wellness products owned by color and allied brands.
In 2006, she was a goodwill ambassador for the HIV/AIDS Joint United Nations Programme, which helps raise awareness of disease-related issues, while also taking part in fundraising and events campaigns. In 2011, Watts attended a charity polo match in New York that aimed to raise money to help victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In 2012, she became an ambassador for "Pantene's Beautiful Lights," a program that donates real hair wigs to women with cancer.