Naomi Watts

"I'm not this dark, twisted person. Yes, I have my demons and this is my way of exorcising them. It gets them out - and better out than in. Actually, I think that it's the comedians who are the darkest people on the planet, because they think life's just bloody hilarious."

Naomi Ellen Watts (September 28, 1968 - ) is an award winning British-Australian actress and occasional producer. Born in Shoreham, Kent in the UK and raised in Australia before moving to America, Watts struggled in the movie scene for some time, taking on small roles in films she has since admitted were "shit" to pay the rent, before being cast by David Lynch in the lead role for his project Mulholland Drive. Her performance as Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn won critical acclaim and the attention of some major players in Hollywood and beyond. She has since enjoyed success in a far greater choice of film roles, balancing her resume with box-office successes like Gore Verbinski's 2002 remake of the Japanese horror film Ringu and deeper roles in indie films such as 2003's 21 Grams, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress that many felt was long overdue.

In addition, Watts had a relationship with late actor Heath Ledger (she allegedly had to talk him into starring in 2005's Best Picture nominee Brokeback Mountain) from August 2002 to May 2004 before breaking up with him in 2005 and later meeting actor Liev Schreiber in the spring of 2005. They had two children together. Watts divorced Scheiber in 2016 and married actor Billy Crudup in 2023.

Her father, Peter Watts, used to be Pink Floyd's road manager. Notably, both her parents contributed spoken word vocals to The Dark Side of the Moon.

Naomi Watts has performed in the following roles:

Tank Girl (1995) as Jet Girl
Mulholland Drive (2001) as Betty Elms / Diane Selwyn
The Ring (2002) as Rachel Keller
21Grams (2003) as Cristina Peck (nominated for best actress)
I ♥ Huckabees (2004) as Dawn Campbell
King Kong (2005) as Ann Darrow
Ellie Parker (2005) as Ellie Parker
The Painted Veil (2006) as Kitty Fane
Eastern Promises (2007) as Anna Khitrova
The International (2009) as Eleanor Whitman
Fair Game (2010) as Valerie Plame
Dream House (2011) as Ann Patterson
J. Edgar (2011) as Helen Gandy
The Impossible (2012) as Maria Bennett
Movie 43 (2013) as Samantha
Adoration (2013) as Lil
Sunlight Jr. (2013) as Melissa
Diana (2013) as Princess Diana
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) as Lesley Truman
St. Vincent (2014) as Daka
While We're Young (2014) as Cornelia Schrebnick
The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015) as Evelyn Johnson-Eaton
The Sea of Trees (2015) as Joan Brennan
Demolition (2015) as Karen Moreno
3 Generations (2015) as Maggie
The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016) as Evelyn Johnson-Eaton
Chuck (2016) as Linda Wepner
Shut In (2016) as Mary Portman
The Book of Henry (2017) as Susan Carpenter
The Glass Castle (2017) as Rose Mary Walls
Ophelia (2018) as Queen Gertrude / Mechthild
Luce (2019) as Amy Edgar
The Wolf Hour (2019) as June Leigh
Penguin Bloom (2020) as Sam Bloom
Boss Level (2021) as Jemma Wells
The Desperate Hour (2021) as Amy Carr
This Is the Night (2021) as Marie Dedea
Infinite Storm (2022) as Pam Bales
Goodnight Mommy (2022) as Mother
The Friend (2024) as Iris
Emmanuelle (2024) as Margot

Naomi Watts provides examples of the following tropes:

Blue Eyes
Covers Always Lie - After she became a success with Mulholland Drive and The Ring, one of her earlier and, well, not quite as good, films The Shaft was released on DVD with packaging that leads one to believe that she's the star, when she's really the protagonist's sidekick/love interest.
Crowning Moment of Awesome - her performance Mulholland Drive. Say what you will about the film itself, but she's extraordinary.
- "Fuckabees!". Overlaps with Crowning Moment of Funny.
Fake American - More than half of her roles.
Fan Service - Her character in I ♥ Huckabees is a model for the titular company and thus spends much of her screen time half-naked. However, near the end she undergoes an awakening and spends the rest of the film wearing baggy overalls and a bonnet, leaving Fuckabe-uh, Huckabees.
Hair of Gold
Hot Mom - She's had two babies and still looks great.
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl - With Liev Schreiber. Even when she was with Heath Ledger, there was still a considerable size difference.
Large Ham - in The Ring. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM MEEEEEE!" and perhaps most infamously, The Ring Two's "I'm not your fucking mommy!"
- Dawn Campbell became rather hammy herself.
Les Yay / Heterosexual Life Partners: Ever notice how fond she is of her best friend Nicole Kidman?
Lipstick Lesbian - She plays one in Mulholland Drive.
Meganekko: In Tank Girl
Money, Dear Boy - the reason she acted in movies that would later be her...
Old Shame - as mentioned above, she's flat-out stated that many of her early films were "shit" and that she only acted in them to pay the rent. Between Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering, Tank Girl and The Shaft, it's probably a good idea to avoid her pre-Mulholland Drive films.
- Tank Girl has a fair cult following, definitely a case of Your Mileage May Vary
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping - Pretty rarely, but it does happen in a couple of her films.
Remake - she's been in remakes of The Ring, King Kong, The Painted Veil, Funny Games, and Emmanuelle.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? - Apparently she's afraid of elevators, which is amusing because one of her early (and not so good) films The Shaft is about a killer elevator.
The Woobie - she's played quite a few.