Naomi Watts is an English actress and film producer. She made her screen debut in the Australian drama film For Love Alone (1986) and then appeared in the Australian television series Hey Dad..! (1990), Brides of Christ (1991) and Home and Away (1991) and alongside Nicole Kidman and Thandie Newton in the coming-of-age comedy-drama film Flirting (1991).
After moving to America, Watts appeared in films, including Tank Girl (1995), Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996) and Dangerous Beauty (1998) and had the lead role in the television series Sleepwalkers (1997–1998).
1. Naomi Ellen Watts was born 28 September 1968 in in Shoreham, Kent, England.
2. She is the daughter of Myfanwy (“Miv”) Edwards, an antiques dealer and costume and set designer, and Peter Watts (1946–1976), a road manager and sound engineer who worked with Pink Floyd.
3. Miv was born in England but lived in Australia between the ages of one and seven. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh and her maternal grandmother was Australian.
4. Watts’ parents divorced when she was four years old.[5][8] After the divorce, Watts and her elder brother, Ben Watts, moved several times across South East England with their mother.
5. Peter Watts left Pink Floyd in 1974, and he and Myfanwy were later reconciled. Two years later, in August 1976, he was found dead in a flat in Notting Hill, of an apparent heroin overdose.
6. Following his death, Watts’ mother moved the family to Llanfawr Farm in Llangefni and Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, towns on the island of Anglesey in North Wales, where they lived with Watts’ maternal grandparents, Nikki and Hugh Roberts, for three years.
7. During this time, Watts attended a Welsh language school, Ysgol Gyfun Llangefni, where she carried out her studies.
8. In 1978, her mother remarried (though she would later be divorced again) and Watts and her brother then moved to Suffolk where she attended Thomas Mills High School.
9. Watts has stated that she wanted to become an actress after seeing her mother performing on stage and from the time she watched the 1980 film Fame.
10. In 1982, when Watts was 14, she moved to Sydney, New South Wales in Australia with her mother, brother and stepfather.
11. Myfanwy established a career in the burgeoning film business, working as a stylist for television commercials, then turning to costume design, ultimately working for the soap opera Return to Eden.
12. After emigrating, Watts was enrolled in acting lessons by her mother; she auditioned for numerous television advertisements, where she met and befriended actress Nicole Kidman. Watts obtained her first role in the 1986 drama film, For Love Alone, based on the novel of the same name by Christina Stead, and produced by Margaret Fink.
13. In Australia, Watts attended Mosman High School and North Sydney Girls High School.
14. She failed to graduate from school, afterwards working as a papergirl, a negative cutter and managing a Delicacies store in Sydney’s affluent North Shore.
15. She decided to become a model when she was 18. She signed with a models agency that sent her to Japan, but after several failed auditions, she returned to Sydney.
16. There, she was hired to work in advertising for a department store, that exposed her to the attention of Follow Me, a magazine which hired her as an assistant fashion editor.
17. A casual invitation to participate in a drama workshop inspired Watts to quit her job and to pursue her acting ambitions.
18. Regarding her nationality, Watts has stated: “I consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK.
19. I spent the first 14 years of my life in England and Wales and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot.”
20. After years as a struggling actress, Watts came to attention in David Lynch’s psychological thriller Mulholland Drive (2001).
21. The following year she enjoyed box-office success with The Ring (2002), the remake of a successful Japanese horror film.
22. She then received nominations at the Academy Awards and the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards in the Best Actress categories for her portrayal of Cristina Peck in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s neo-noir 21 Grams (2003).
23. Her subsequent films include David O. Russell’s comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004), the 2005 remake of King Kong, the crime-thriller Eastern Promises (2007) and the Tom Tykwer-directed thriller The International (2009).
24. Since then, Watts has portrayed Valerie Plame Wilson in the biographical drama Fair Game (2010) and Helen Gandy in Clint Eastwood’s biographical drama J. Edgar (2011).
25. For her leading role as Maria Bennett in the disaster film The Impossible (2012), she received second nominations for the Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress and a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
26. In 2002, Watts was included in People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People.
27. In 2006, she became a goodwill ambassador for Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, which helps to raise awareness of AIDS-related issues.
28. She has participated in several fundraisers for the cause, and she is presented as an inaugural member of AIDS Red Ribbon Awards.
29. Her father’s laugh can be heard in the Pink Floyd songs “Speak to Me” and “Brain Damage” from their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.
30. Watts is pictured in her mother’s arms with her father, brother, the band and other crew members, in the hardback/softcover edition of drummer Nick Mason’s autobiography of the band Inside Out.
31. Watts was in a relationship with actor Heath Ledger from August 2002 to May 2004.
32. In the spring of 2005, Watts began a relationship with actor Liev Schreiber. She confirmed in an interview in late January 2009 that Schreiber had in fact given her a ring (which she was not wearing at the time) but that neither of them wanted to rush into marriage.
33. Schreiber, known to play tricks on the media, had once before called her his wife in 2007, but later revealed that it was a joke.
34. The couple’s first son, Alexander “Sasha” Pete, was born in July 2007 in Los Angeles, and their second son, Samuel “Sammy” Kai, in December 2008 in New York City.
34. After a temporary hiatus from acting, she returned to work with The International, her first project since becoming a mother.
35. Watts stated in April 2010 that she would have a third child if she could guarantee a baby girl.
36. On September 26, 2016, Watts and Schreiber announced their separation, after 11 years together.
37. She considered converting to Buddhism after having gained an interest in that religion during the shooting of The Painted Veil.
38. She said of her religious beliefs, “I have some belief but I am not a strict Buddhist or anything yet”.[165] She practices the Transcendental Meditation technique.
39. In February 2016, it was reported that she had agreed to become the honorary president of Glantraeth FC, a small football club in Malltraeth, Anglesey, Wales, near to her grandparents’ farm, where she spent time as a child.
