Naomi Watts Quotes

It seems like a lot when you have three movies back to back but that's not really how it is.

I love being outside with trees and water, lying down somewhere or walking. I do transcendental meditation, which keeps me calm and steady.

I consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK. I spent the first 14 years of my life in England and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot.

I think when a man sees a woman who knows what she wants it can be scary, but it can also be tempting.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

I find myself gravitating towards drama. It interests me. In the books I read, the paintings I like, it's always the darker stuff.

Rodrigo Garcia is a brilliant writer. He just loves women. It is evident. When you are in the presence of him you can just tell he has a terrific understanding of women. He has two daughters, and he loves his wife.

I meditate. I do transcendental meditation and I have been doing that for a long time and that does just clear the mind. I am not religious at all.

Sometimes you arrive late in the process of filming, which makes it a little scary because they've already got this well-established technique going on, and all of the relationships are comfy and cozy. You have to figure out how to fit in, which can always be a scary first day.

I feel like personally I have more drive now than I did then probably because I care more and also because I've reached the mid-life point.

I got knockback after knockback at auditions. Just before ‘Mulholland Dr.’ my agent told me I was so intense I was freaking people out. She told me I was a brilliant actor but the feedback was that I made people feel uncomfortable because I was so nervous and intense. I just sat there and blubbed. My mum was staying in LA at the time and I went to her and said: ‘I just can’t do this. I’m not cut out for it.’ She just said: ‘Don’t believe a word people say about you. Forget them.’

I have a bit of a frustrated dancer in me.

You're always nervous about how a film lands with an audience.

Dance was one of the things that led me to acting even though I say I fell in love with acting fairly early on and its true but around 16 and 17 I got heavily into dance but I think I just came into it too late and I was never going to be really great at it so I let it go and the dance led to more acting classes.

It is a huge amount of pressure playing someone like Valerie Plame-Wilson. First of all who she is and what she's done is wildly intimidating and impressive. It is just scary to take on that responsibility, and you want to honor her story, an incredible story that affected us all. She is often doing things that were confusing to me, like her sexual prowess. I think that she is in a lot of pain and she has been really badly wounded along the way. She doesn't hold men in the highest regard... not just men but people.

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.

Hotels are temporary people storage, no matter how big the boxes are. Remember that.

The thing that I love about acting is the fact that I can help people feel things, know themselves or feel less alone. It's my form of expression, in the same way that someone might paint a picture or sing a song in that you're hoping that it moves somebody outside of their own way of thinking.

Who are we when we leave our families? Who do we become? What are we capable of? That's something that never leaves us. It begins at that point in your life when you leave the nest, and I don't think we stop wanting to explore that question.

I was going on years and years of auditions and being told I was too this, too that, not enough of this, not enough of that, to the point where I was so afraid and diluting myself into absolutely nothing...

I'm not happy unless I've got a little bit of fear going.

Female roles in comedies are usually quite silly, I think.

What you want, as an actor, is a great leader. I can't bear it when I work with a director who is wishy-washy and says, "What did you think?"

The use of violence in movies is a subject that's worth addressing. I'm not standing on a soapbox or wagging a finger, but I'm interested in those subjects for sure.

I think every time you take on a new role, you're trying to help find that voice and you add your own bits and pieces along the way but with Noah [Baumbach] it's already done.

Sometimes they come to you and it's a small role, so it's about the experience and the journey and mixing with people you know you will learn from. Or sometimes it's a scene in a movie that you think, 'I just have to play this person.'