Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts
Biography

Birth name                        Naomi Ellen Watts
Nick name                       Queen of Remakes
Birth date                         September 28, 1968
Birth place                        Shoreham, Kent, England, UK
Height                             5' 5" (1.65 m)
Occupation                      Actress
Years active                    1986–present
Partner                            Liev Schreiber (2005–present; 2 children)

Life and Career

Naomi Ellen Watts  is a British-born Australian actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in commercials and series, including the Home and Away, Brides of Christ and Hey Dad..!. Her first film role was in the 1986 drama For Love Alone. Later, she had a major supporting role in the coming of age film Flirting, and was cast in the 1996 horror film Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering.

Watts gained critical acclaim following her work in the 2001 psychological thriller Mulholland Drive. She appeared in the 2002 hit horror film The Ring. In 2004, she received the nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress as well as for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for the 2003 drama 21 Grams. Other film roles include the 2005 remake of King Kong and the 2007 thriller Eastern Promises.

In 2006, Watts became a goodwill ambassador for Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, which helps to raise awareness of AIDS issues.

Watts was born in Shoreham, Kent, England, the daughter of Myfanwy Edwards (née Roberts), a Welsh antiques dealer and costume and set designer, and Peter Watts, an English road manager and sound engineer who worked with Pink Floyd.

Watts has one brother, Ben, a year older and now a photographer residing in the United States. Watts's parents separated when she was four years old, and her father died during her childhood. Following her father's death, her mother moved the family to Llanfawr Farm, on Anglesey in North Wales, where they lived with Watts's maternal grandparents, Nikki and Hugh Roberts. During this time, she attended a Welsh language school, Ysgol Gyfun Llangefni, where she carried out her studies for several years. Watts described her mother (also an actress) 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, living there until Naomi was 14. Watts says that she wanted to become an actress since watching the 1980 film Fame.[citation needed] In 1982, the family moved to Sydney, Australia. Her grandmother was Australian, which made it easier to obtain the documentation necessary, since Watts and her family were entitled to Australian citizenship.

After moving to Sydney, she attended Mosman High School. She attended several schools, including North Sydney Girls' High School, where her classmates included Nicole Kidman, with whom she is still close. 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.[citation needed] 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. A casual invitation to participate in a drama workshop rekindled her passion for acting, and prompted her to quit her job and dedicate herself to succeeding as an actress.

Watts's career began in Australian television, where she appeared in commercials and series, including the soap opera Home and Away, the award winning mini-series  Brides of Christ and the family sitcom Hey Dad..! She was featured in a supporting role in the acclaimed 1991 Australian indie film Flirting, starring 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. She appeared in the short-lived series, Sleepwalkers and numerous B-list productions such as films like Children of the Corn IV. Much of her early career is filled with near misses in casting as she was up for significant roles in films such as The Parent Trap, Meet the Parents and Man on the Moon, roles would eventually go to other actresses. Gradually, Watts attracted supporting roles in films such as Dangerous Beauty.

Watts with filmmaker David Lynch at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001
In 2001, she starred in The Shaft directed by Dick Maas, which garnered poor reviews. Watts starred in David Lynch's highly acclaimed Mulholland Drive. The film premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, winning her the National Society of Film Critics Award as Best Actress and the National Board of Review award as Breakthrough Performance of the Year. The surrealist film attracted controversy with its strong lesbian theme.  Having worked with director/screenwriter Scott Coffey on Mulholland Drive, they teamed up to co-produce her next film, the semi-autobiographical Ellie Parker, which 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 film received favorable reviews;  Watt's performance was praised by critics, including Paul Clinton of CNN.com, who stated that she "is excellent in this leading role, which proves that her stellar performance in Mulholland Drive was not a fluke. She strikes a perfect balance between skepticism and the slow realization of the truth in regard to the deadly power of the videotape."

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. Her performance opposite Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro in director Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams earned Watts her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She said of the nomination, "It's far beyond what I ever dreamed for - that would have been too far fetched". She also was nominated for Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, as well as many other nominations and acclaim.

She produced and starred in the well-received independent film We Don't Live Here Anymore. The film is a drama which was based on the short stories We Don't Live Here Anymore and Adultery by Andre Dubus. She reunited with Sean Penn and Don Cheadle in The Assassination of Richard Nixon, in which she played Marie Andersen Bicke, the wife of Penn's character, Samuel J. Bicke. She also teamed up with Jude Law and Dustin Hoffman in David O. Russell's ensemble comedy I ♥ Huckabees.

Watts landed the lead role in the sequel to the Ring, The Ring Two. The film received several negative reviews,  but was a major success at the box office, with a over $ 161 million worldwide gross.  She starred in the much-anticipated remake of King Kong (2005) as Ann Darrow. The role, immortalized by Fay Wray in the original film, proved to be Watts's most commercially successful film yet. Helmed by The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, the film won high praise and grossed $550 million worldwide.

Watts starred in the American Japanese drama The Painted Veil with Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber, released in December 2006. Her character in the film was Kitty Garstin Fane. Also that year, she provided the voice of a small role, Suzie Rabbit, in the psychological thriller film Inland Empire. The following year, she appeared in David Cronenberg's British thriller Eastern Promises with Viggo Mortensen. The film was released to critical acclaim for the film itself and for her performance. Critic Matthew Turner of View London wrote that Watts "strikes an intriguing balance between strength and emotional vulnerability."  In 2008, she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress.

Funny Games, a 2008 remake of the 1997 Austrian film by director Michael Haneke, was co-starred Tim Roth. In the film, she portrayed the character of Ann Farber, the wife of Roth's character. The film opened on October 20, 2007 at the London Film Festival.  The press has labeled her the "queen of remakes" because she has starred in so many of them; she is scheduled to star in the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).  Watts has stated only that there have been "discussions" about the remake.

In 2009, Watts had the starring role alongside Clive Owen in the political thriller film The International.
Her character was Eleanor Whitman, a Manhattan assistant district attorney who partners with the agent to take down the bank.  In an interview, she said about her role: "She was operating in this fast-moving world and was a great bouncing board for her colleague, Salinger, but also trying to balance that with motherhood as well, and I think I definitely relate to that now and hopefully other career mothers will too."The International was well received by critics  and grossed over $ 60 million worldwide.

She next appeared in the American drama Mother and Child, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival.  She personified the role of Elizabeth, a lawer woman, who never knew her biological mother. The film offered her the chance to act with the actors Annette Bening, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Mother and Child received several favorable reviews, and Watts' performance was praised by Tom Long of Detroit News, who stated that she "has the ability to make such a ragged transition somehow work."  She was nominated for the "Best Actress" award at the Australian Film Institute International Awards. She is also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in the category of Best Supporting Female.

The comedy-drama You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger – starring Watts – opened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2010. She portrayed Sally, a woman who has a troubled marriage with author Roy (played by Josh Brolin). Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch and Anthony Hopkins also co-starred in the film. The film received mixed or average reviews from critics  and has grossed $23,053,338 worldwide.

In January 2010, she was cast for the thriller film Dream House, which will be directed by Jim Sheridan.
She starred in the film Fair Game, which opened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and was later released in the United States on November 5, 2010.[40] In Fair Game, she co-appeared with Sean Penn again; the film marks the third pairing of Watts with Peen after 21 Grams and The Assassination of Richard Nixon. It's based on Valerie Plame's memoir, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House.
Watts was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama.
In 2010, it was announced that Watts landed the role of Marilyn Monroe in the film Blonde. which is set to start shooting in January 2011.

Charity work
In 2006, Watts became a goodwill ambassador for Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, it helps to raise awareness of AIDS issues. She has used her high profile and celebrity to call attention to the needs of people living with this disease. Watts participates in events and activities, including the 21st Annual AIDS Walk. She is presented as an inaugural member of AIDS Red Ribbon Awards. She has participated in campaigns for fundraising.

On December 1, 2009, Watts was meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and joined the AIDS response at a dramatic public event commemorating World AIDS Day 2009. During the event, she said:  (Source Wikipedia)


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