Naomi Watts has recalled being “unhireable” earlier in her career.
The British actress moved to Hollywood in the mid-1990s, making her American film debut in Tank Girl in 1995.
However, in a recent interview with Variety, Naomi opened up about her struggles to find her feet in Tinseltown.
“I pretty much was deemed as unhireable,” the 57-year-old remembered of the period. “I was flunking auditions over and over again, or I’d get in a movie and it would get cut down or out. It was just bad luck.”
Naomi’s luck changed when she was invited to meet late filmmaker David Lynch regarding a TV pilot he was working on.
“The minute I walked in, it just felt different,” the King Kong star recalled of meeting with him. “He was present. He was asking me questions. It felt very different than any previous audition I’d gone to – there were so many where it’s a line of people, you’ve had to wait two hours, you’ve had to drive across town to get there and then go back the next day, and people would barely look at you.”
She added of the late filmmaker, “But David just lit up, and I was able to connect with him in a different way.”
Although ABC rejected the pilot, David reworked it as the 2001 film Mulholland Drive, which ultimately became Naomi’s Hollywood breakthrough.
The Oscar-nominated actress recently received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an honour that left her in disbelief.
“I can’t even believe it,” she told the publication of the achievement. “It’s interesting, because I have all kinds of imposter syndrome. I’ve always felt like I’m supposed to struggle, I’m supposed to keep proving myself, and this sort of just came out of the blue. It’s really lovely.”