Who is Naomi Ellen Watts?

Who is Naomi Ellen Watts? The world knows her as Naomi Watts, she is a British-Australian-American actress. She is known for her roles in Mulholland Drive, the film remakes of The Ring, King Kong, Funny Games and her Academy Award-nominated role in the film 21 Grams.

Watts was born 28 September 1968, in England in Shoreham, Kent, England, the daughter of Myfannwy Glennys Edwards "Miv" (née Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume and set designer, and Peter Watts, a road manager and sound engineer who worked with Pink Floyd (her father's manic laugh and mother's comment about "cruisin' for a bruisin'" are featured in the song "Money" from The Dark Side of the Moon).[1][2][3][4] Watts is pictured, in her mother's arms, with her father, brother, the band, and other crew members, in the hardback edition of drummer Nick Mason's autobiography of the band Inside Out.[5]
Watts has one brother, Ben, a year older and now a photographer in the United States. Watts' parents separated when she was four years old, and when she was seven, her father died. Following her father's death, her mother relocated the family to Llanfawr Farm, on the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales, where they lived with Watts' maternal grandparents, Nikki and Hugh Roberts.[6]

Watts described her mother 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. Watts lived there until she was 14. The family moved to Sydney, Australia in 1982. Her grandmother was Australian, which made it easier to obtain the documentation necessary, since Watts and her family were entitled to Australian citizenship. Of her nationality, she has said, "I consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK. 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."[7] But she has also clarified that she feels very much Australian after having lived there for many years and said, "I consider myself very Australian and very connected to Australia, in fact when people say where is home, I say Australia, because those are my most powerful memories."[8][9]
Watts claims that she wanted to become an actress since watching the film Fame. After moving to Sydney, she attended Mosman High school, coincidentally the same school attended by screen writers Laurence Briggs and Dan Wilde. She attended several acting 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. 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' career began in Australian television, where she appeared in commercials and series, including the melodramas Home and Away and 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. Gradually, Watts attracted supporting roles in films such as Dangerous Beauty. In 2001, she starred in The Shaft directed by Dick Maas, which garnered poor reviews.


In 2001, 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.
Watts worked with director/screenwriter Scott Coffey on Lynch's Mulholland Drive, where Watts made her breakout performance. Her next film, the semi-autobiographical Ellie Parker, 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 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 produced and starred in the well-received independent film We Don't Live Here Anymore.

She reunited with Sean Penn and Don Cheadle in The Assassination of Richard Nixon, teamed up with Jude Law and Dustin Hoffman in David O. Russell's ensemble comedy I ♥ Huckabees, and starred in the sequel to the Ring, The Ring Two. She then 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' 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 Painted Veil with Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber, released in

December 2006. She has since finished the films Funny Games (a remake of the homonymous Austrian film by director Michael Haneke) with Tim Roth, and David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises with Viggo Mortensen.

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).[10] Watts has only stated that there have been "discussions" about the remake.[11]


In May 2006, Watts was named a special representative to the U.N. program for HIV/AIDS.
On 24 July 2007, The Courier-Mail reported that Watts had been cast as Narcissa Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with Stuart Townsend and Joseph Fiennes, the younger brother of Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort), also being cast in unspecified roles.[12] On the next day, representatives of Watts, Townsend and Fiennes said that the rumors were not true.[13]


Since spring 2005, Watts' life-partner has been the actor Liev Schreiber. The couple's first son, Alexander Pete, was born on 25 July 2007 in Los Angeles, and their second son, Samuel Kai, on 13 December 2008 in New York City.[14][15][16][17] After a temporary hiatus from acting, she returned to work with The International, her first project since becoming a mother.[18]
Watts is a close friend of Benicio del Toro, with whom she co-starred in 21 Grams. Watts is friends with actress Isla Fisher, and is godmother to The Mentalist's Simon Baker's oldest daughter, Stella.
After filming The Painted Veil, she became attracted to Buddhism, claiming, "I have some belief but I am not a strict Buddhist or anything yet. There was a lot of excitement and energy there."[19] more

Who is Joaquin Rafael Phoenix?

Who is Joaquin Rafael Phoenix? The World knows hims as Joaquin Phoenix, but he was formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, he is a Puerto Rican[1][2] film actor, musician, and occasional rapper. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in the continental United States, he is from a family of performers. Phoenix is one of six siblings, including his older brother, fellow actor River Phoenix.
Phoenix has ventured behind the camera, directing music videos as well as producing movies and television shows, and has recorded an album, the soundtrack to Walk the Line. He is also known for his work as a social activist, particularly as an advocate for animal rights. On October 27, 2008, he announced his retirement from film in order to focus on his music career.[3][4] Phoenix made his rap debut in mid-January 2009. Rumors circulated that it was an elaborate hoax, to which Phoenix stated "This is not a joke. Might I be ridiculous? Might my career in music be laughable? Yeah, that's possible, but that's certainly not my intention."[5]

Phoenix was born October 28, 1974 Joaquin Rafael Bottom in Río Piedras,[6] located in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is the third of five children, including River (1970), Rain (1972), Liberty (1976), and Summer (1978). He also has a half-sister named Jodean (1964), from his father's first marriage.[7]
His father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic[8] from Fontana, California.[9] His mother, Arlyn Phoenix (née Dunetz), was born in the Bronx, New York to Jewish parents from Hungary and Russia.[8] In 1968, Arlyn left her family and moved to California, later meeting Phoenix's father while hitch-hiking. They married in 1969, then later joined the religious cult the Children of God. They began travelling throughout South America.[9]

His parents eventually became disillusioned with the Children of God; they made the decision to leave the cult and returned to the U.S. in 1978. They changed their last name to "Phoenix" to symbolize a new beginning. This was also around the time Phoenix had begun calling himself "Leaf", desiring to have a similar nature-related name like his siblings (he was inspired by spending time outdoors raking leaves with his dad). This is the name he would use as a child actor; at fifteen, he changed it back to 'Joaquin'.[10]

In order to provide food and financial support for the family, the Phoenix children performed on the streets and at various talent contests, singing and playing instruments. In Los Angeles his mother started working as a secretary for NBC, and his father worked as a landscaper. Joaquin and his siblings were eventually discovered by one of Hollywood's leading children's agents, Iris Burton, who got the five children acting work, mainly doing commercials and television show appearances.[11] Phoenix went on to establish himself a child actor before deciding to withdraw from acting for a while and travel to Mexico and South America with his father.

Phoenix came back into public view under tragic circumstances: on October 31, 1993, his brother, River Phoenix, suffered a fatal drug overdose and died, outside the famed Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room, which was owned by Johnny Depp. Joaquin's call to 911 to save his brother was recorded and repeatedly played over the airwaves and on television. The sudden media intrusion into his life proved to be too overwhelming; once again, he retreated from the public eye. A year later, at the insistence of his friends, Phoenix reluctantly re-entered the world of acting.[12]


Phoenix dated actress Liv Tyler from 1995 to November 1998. The couple met on the set of Inventing the Abbotts.[13] He checked into rehab to be treated for alcoholism in early April 2005.[14] On January 26, 2006, Phoenix was in a car accident in Hollywood on a winding canyon road that flipped his car over. The crash reportedly was caused by brake failure. Shaken and confused, Phoenix heard a tapping on his window and a voice say, "Just relax". Unable to see the man, Phoenix replied, "I'm fine. I am relaxed". The man replied, 'No, you're not'. At this point, Phoenix managed to see that the man was famed, eccentric German auteur Werner Herzog. After helping Phoenix out of the wreckage, Herzog phoned in an ambulance and vanished.[15]

Phoenix's first acting jobs were guest appearances on two television shows with his brother River in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1982) and Backwards: The Riddle Of Dyslexia (1984). He made his big-screen debut in Space Camp (1986), playing the role of Max, after starring in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "A very happy ending" the same year. His first starring role was in Russkies (1987). He later co-starred in Ron Howard's Parenthood (1989), in which he was credited as Leaf Phoenix.

Early on in his career, Phoenix had often played supporting roles as conflicted, insecure characters with a dark side. He has earned positive reviews for his portrayals of various individuals: a troubled teen in Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995) co-starring with Nicole Kidman, a small-town troublemaker in Oliver Stone's U-Turn, the cruel Roman emperor Commodus in Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), a conflicted priest in Quills (2000), a washed-up baseball player in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002), a lovestruck farmer in Shyamalan's The Village (2004), a disillusioned cameraman in Terry George's Hotel Rwanda (2004), and heroic firefighter in Ladder 49 (2004).[16]

Upon being cast as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line after Cash himself approved, Phoenix responded by buying a guitar and learning how to play. Reese Witherspoon, who portrayed June Carter Cash in the film and won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance, stated during an interview that when they first performed in-character before a live audience, she was so impressed with his impersonation that she knew she "had to step it up a notch". All of Cash and Carter's vocal tracks in the movie and on the accompanying soundtrack are played and sung by Phoenix and Witherspoon. In 2005, he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, and won a Golden Globe in the same category in 2006.

In 2006, Phoenix was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[17] On October 27, 2008, at a benefit for Paul Newman's Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, Phoenix announced his retirement from acting and stated that he was going to be focusing on a music career. [18]

He has directed music videos for the following bands: Ringside,[19] She Wants Revenge,[20] People in Planes,[21] Arckid,[22] Albert Hammond Jr.[23] and Silversun Pickups[24]
Phoenix serves as one of the executive producers of a television show called 4Real, a half-hour series which showcase celebrity guests on global adventures "in order to connect with young leaders who are creating social and economic change."[25] He is also listed as a producer on the movie We Own the Night.


He recorded the soundtrack album Walk the Line and won a Grammy Award at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards for his work on the soundtrack.[26]
In May 2008, it was reported that Phoenix had been recording songs he had written himself, with Mike Fox (of Little Knickers) handling lead vocals and Tim Burgess (The Charlatans) on backing vocals.[27] No release date has been given for the project.[28]
He will be the subject of a documentary directed by his friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck; the documentary will follow him as he moves to a career making hip-hop music. Filming begins in early 2009.[29]
On February 11, 2009, Phoenix made an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman to promote his film Two Lovers. He was largely unresponsive towards Letterman's questions about the film and his acting career. When the audience laughed at his hip-hop aspirations, he complained to Letterman that he was not joking around. Letterman joked about Phoenix's gum-chewing, Phoenix responded by taking the gum out of his mouth and sticking it under a corner of Letterman's desk.[30][31]

Phoenix has long been a social activist, lending his support to a number of charities and humanitarian organizations, notably Amnesty International,[32] The Art of Elysium, HEART, and The Peace Alliance, an organization which campaigns for a United States Department of Peace.[33] Additionally, he serves on the board of directors of The Lunchbox Fund, a charity that provides lunches for poverty-stricken school children in South Africa.[34]
Phoenix has been a dedicated vegan since the age of three. He is a member of P.E.T.A. and the organization In Defense of Animals, and has actively campaigned on their behalf.[33] He narrated the film Earthlings for Nation Earth, a video about the investigation of animal abuse in factory farms, pet mills, in industry and research. In 2005, he was awarded the "Humanitarian Award" at the San Diego Film Festival for his work and contribution to Earthlings.[35]
In 2005, he participated in the documentary I'm Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust.

Joaquin Phoenix's bizarre antics continued Wednesday at a hip-hop show in Miami.
Sporting a disheveled dark suit and smoking a cigarette, the scraggly-bearded Phoenix, 34, got on stage around 1:50 a.m. at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel's nightclub, LIV.
Nodding to the music, he was barely audible as he began rapping to a beat played by the DJ.
See photos of more Hollywood meltdowns
Near the end of his first number, Phoenix walked to the edge of the right side of the stage and called out an audience member whom he thought was heckling him.
"Bitch," Phoenix yelled. "This is a $3,000 f-----g suit!"
He then jumped into the crowd as security rushed after him.
It was unclear whether the two men scuffled, but security dragged Phoenix away

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