Naomi Watts
Born: September 1968
Where: Shoreham, UK
The Oscar-nominated actress was catapulted into the spotlight when she took Fay Wray's iconic role in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong.
She played actress Ann Darrow, who gets captured by the giant ape and memorably hauled up the Empire State Building in the famous closing scene.
The daughter of Pink Floyd sound engineer Peter Watts (he died when she was seven), she was born in England and lived in the Welsh town of Mold for seven years.
At the age of 14 her Welsh mother moved the family to Australia and Watts dropped out of high school and began taking acting lessons.
She made her big screen debut in 1986 with For Love Alone but her screen career took off in Flirting alongside the then unknown Nicole Kidman.
Her subsequent film credits included Gross Misconduct, Tank Girl, Dangerous Beauty and she also produced and starred in Ellie Parker.
She skilfully took the part of Rachel in the American remake of Japanese box office hit, the psychological chiller The Ring.
She followed this with the tepid Merchant-Ivory romantic comedy Le Divorce with Kate Hudson.
In 2003, she gave a critically acclaimed performance opposite Sean Penn in 21 Grammes and lost out to Charlize Theron as best actress in the Academy Awards.
The same year she also starred Australian outlaw drama The Kelly Gang with fellow Aussies Heath Ledger and Rachel Griffiths.
The following year she appeared in the all--star offbeat comedy I Heart Huckabees and reteamed with Penn for The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
In 2005, she reprised her role of Rachel Keller in Hideo Nakata's remake of his own sequel Ring Two.
Recent work includes Peter Jackson's £130m remake of the the 1933 classic King Kong.
