Powerful Wattage

SHE’S ACING SOUGHT-AFTER ROLES IN MAJOR PRODUCTIONS, SHE’S GOT A BFF GIRL GANG TO BE RECKONED WITH, AND SHE’S THE VERY PROUD MOM OF TWO FABULOUS BOYS. AT 48, NAOMI WATTS IS AT THE TOP OF HER GAME. AND… NO ONE WEARS WHITE BETTER THAN SHE DOES!

- Marli Meyer

Being an actress was always a girly dream of mine. My mother was an actress and I remember watching her on stage – in My Fair Lady – when I was about four or five years old. I kept waving to get her attention and finally she snuck a wink at me. In that moment I got it: I was transported into that world of make-believe.’

Naomi lights up as she recalls this pivotal memory in a New York Times video interview: ‘Definitely a world I wanted to be a part of.’

Born in England to quirky couple Myfanwy (affectionately known as Miv) and Peter Watts, who was a sound engineer for Pink Floyd, she’s a bit of a ‘citizen of the world’, she says, because the Watts family also lived in Australia for a while and she is deeply connected to both countries.

Partly because the family moved around so much, Naomi changed schools often as a child. As a result, she’s a queen of reinvention – and the variety of characters she’s played is testament to that. She now has two Academy Award nominations under her belt, but it took persistence and determination to become one of Hollywood’s leading ladies.

A late bloomer, she got her big break at 32, when David Lynch chose her for his neo-noir mystery,