Naomi Watts

Who She Is:

What an intriguing resume this is. Everyone thinks she’s some new actress who got her big break when she pranced around half-naked for David “I’m Bats**t Insane” Lynch in Mulholland Drive, but she’d been working in the movies for nearly a decade beforehand, scoring her first big role alongside best buddy Nicole Kidman in cult favorite, Flirting. She also appeared in Brides of Christ, a notable Australian documentary about, well, nuns, and was also in the regrettably lame movie version of Tank Girl, though it’s tough to remember anyone being in a movie with Lori Petty and Malcolm MacDowell in it, since both seem incapable of not chewing both scenery and fellow actors to death. Since being David Lynch-ed into movie stardom, she’s appeared in the American remake of The Ring, the radical-chic 21 Grams, and David O. Russell’s limp Wes Anderson ripoff, I Heart Huckabees. Now, she’s in Kong. Huh.

Naomi Watts king kong

Why We Dig Her:

You know, sex symbols aren’t what they used to be. Once, desirable screen sirens looked like women: plush, curved, tough, glamorous. Now, for whatever reason, the new crop of sex sirens look like 12-year old boys with boob jobs – all cruel angles, scratchy hair, dull features, cookie-cutter bodies.
Not so with Naomi Watts, whose delicate, fine features hearken back to the glory days of big-studio sirens.
Small wonder that Peter Jackson sees fit to cast her as a 1930s starlet hitting the big time alongside a building-sized gorilla.

She has the timeless, sparkling smile of a classic leading lady, but still has the spark and the perk of a modern gal. Plus, she’s good without being pretentious: actors have always mistaken look-at-me showboating for talent, but Watts is one of those quietly consistent performers that never hits a sour note and is always worth watching.
Small wonder that she toiled away unheralded for so long in small roles, minor features, and TV miniseries – she’s so good at what she does, you sometimes forget she’s working. Thank God for small miracles.