Yahoo Lifestyle Naomi Watts Nearly Quit Hollywood After ‘Flunking Auditions’ for 10 Years and Her Agent Saying ‘You’re Too Intense.’ Then She Met David Lynch: I Was ‘Desperate’
Naomi Watts revealed on “Live With Kelly and Mark” (via Entertainment Weekly) that she nearly quit acting before she met the late David Lynch, who cast her as the lead in 2001’s “Mulholland Drive.” The film’s critical acclaim and global success turned Watts into a star after “10 years” of “flunking auditions.” Lynch died on Jan. 15 at 78 years old.
“I wouldn’t have stayed [in Hollywood] had I not met David Lynch,” Watts said. “The chips were down, it was 10 years into flunking auditions [and] nothing was happening…I was literally alienating people. I was making them uncomfortable because I was so like, ‘I need a job! I need a job!'”
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Things got so bad for Watts “that my agent at the time said, ‘You’re too intense. You’re making people uncomfortable,'” the Oscar nominee remembered. “Yeah, I need a job. I’m desperate, I need to work. I planned on going home multiple times.”
“Long story short, David Lynch called me in and has a very different way of casting,” she continued. “He sat me down and just looked me in the eyes and asked me questions, and most of the time I was like, ‘How do I get out of your way? How do I speed this up?’ [Because] I’m sure I’m not right, because I just had that programming: I’m not funny, I’m not sexy, I’m too old, I’m too this, too that. And he just saw me and was able to sort of lift these veneers.”
Watts and Lynch would go on to reunite on projects such as “Rabbits” and “Twin Peaks: The Return,” which co-starred the director’s other muses like Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern. After the news of Lynch’s death broke online, Watts took to Instagram to share an emotional tribute and to tell her fans that “the world will not be the same without him.”
“His creative mentorship was truly powerful,” Watts wrote. “The world I’d been trying to break into for ten plus years, flunking auditions left and right. Finally, I sat in front of a curious man, beaming with light, speaking words from another era, making me laugh and feel at ease. How did he even ‘see me’ when I was so well hidden, and I’d even lost sight of myself?!”
“Every moment together felt charged with a presence I’ve rarely seen or known,” Watts continued about their time together. “Probably because, yes, he seemed to live in an altered world, one that I feel beyond lucky to have been a small part of. And David invited all to glimpse into that world through his exquisite storytelling, which elevated cinema and inspired generations of filmmakers across the globe.”
Watts concluded, “I just cannot believe that he’s gone. I’m in pieces but forever grateful for our friendship.”
The actor is currently making the press rounds in support of her new book, “Dare I Say It.” After Lynch cast Watts in “Mulholland Drive,” Hollywood finally came calling with major roles in projects such as “The Ring” and “21 Grams.”
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