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“I made people uncomfortable”

Tributes are multiplying for David Lynch, iconic director who died on January 15, 2025, at the age of 78. A week after his death, British actress Naomi Watts spoke on the show “Live with Kelly and Mark”.

The opportunity for the 56-year-old star to reveal how the director had changed her life when they met in the early 2000s.

After a series of small roles in the cinema in the 80s and 90s, Naomi Watts despairs at the idea of ​​finally obtaining a significant role. But, in 2001, she starred in the cult feature film “Mulholland Drive”, by David Lynch. Critically acclaimed, she was nominated for around fifteen awards, and received more than half of them.

“It’s thanks to him that I made my career in America,” she says. “If I hadn’t met David Lynch, I probably wouldn’t have stayed.” Indeed, at the time, the British actress was undermined by “10 years of failed auditions”: “Nothing was happening, it was driving me crazy. I was making people uncomfortable because I was doing it. too much, I needed a job so badly.”

She also specifies that her agent at the time had criticized her for it: “He told me that I was too intense, that I made people uncomfortable. It’s undoubtedly true, but I I was desperate.”

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Disappointed with her poor performance, Naomi Watts was preparing to leave Hollywood to return to England when she received the call that would change her life. “To make a long story short, David Lynch called me and he has a very different way of doing castings,” she explains.

“He sat me down and just looked me in the eyes and asked me questions, and most of the time I was like, ‘How can I get out of his way?’ How can I speed things up?’ At the time, I was convinced I didn’t have what it took. I told myself: I’m not funny, I’m not sexy, I’m too old, I’m this, too that. And this man came to me and was able to sort of lift these facets.”

Subsequently, the director became “a mentor and friend” to Naomi Watts, who was heartbroken by his recent death. “My heart is broken. My buddy Dave… The world won’t be the same without him. His creative mentorship was truly powerful. He introduced me to the world I had been trying to enter for over a decade, failing auditions left and right,” she confided on Instagram to pay tribute to him. The actress is convinced: she owes her career to him.

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