Just came across this wonderful blog article from Cinematical.com and I had to share it here! What do you think about it – do you agree/disagree? Who should Naomi work with next to properly show off her talents?

Their Best Role: Naomi Watts

There’s a long list of actors who crash and burn, or just plain disappear, after a single star-making, early-career performance. Cuba Gooding Jr. may be the prototype, but see also Jaye Davidson, Linda Blair, Linda Hamilton, etc. But every bit as frustrating as an obviously talented performer who never again does anything of note after making an initial splash is the actor who gives a single indelible performance and then goes on to a successful, entirely respectable career without ever recapturing that magic. I know no better example of that phenomenon than Naomi Watts, a bona fide superstar who has been competent and thoroughly unremarkable in a long string of big-time Hollywood roles, but has never lived down – or even approached – the performance that made her a somebody in the first place.

It’s arguably inevitable that I would feel this way, since I consider Mulholland Dr. to be one of the greatest films ever made, and anyone in any way associated with it walks on water as far as I’m concerned. But Watts’s performance as Betty Elms / Diane Selwyn is so fearless, so committed, so entirely submerged in the movie’s terrifying freakshow universe, that it’s in a class by itself – as essential to the film as Lynch’s singular aesthetic. The obvious reference point is the incredible audition scene, which is at once hilarious and deeply disquieting (as well as thematically pivotal), but what sticks out in my mind is Betty’s arrival at LAX, her face a perfect vision of the wide-eyed excitement and sense of possibility that brings countless young people to the shark tanks of LA and New York on a daily basis.

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All in a day’s work – Actors leave egos offstage for 24 hour plays

The audience at the American Airlines Theatre tomorrow night (8th) will have a rare chance to see some of Hollywood’s most famous actors absolutely lose their friggin’ minds. The source of this potential meltdown is the ninth annual “24 Hour Plays,” a series of six 10-minute works in which the actors — including Brooke Shields, Jennifer Aniston, Rosie Perez, Naomi Watts, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Mooreand more — don’t get to see their scripts until 12 hours before curtain.

The sold-out show, a charity presentation for the arts-in-schools charity Urban Arts Partnership, will work as follows. Twenty-four actors, six playwrights and six directors will meet at 10 tonight, with each actor bringing a costume and prop of their choosing.

After introductions are made, each playwright — including Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire (“Shrek the Musical,” “Rabbit Hole”) and Tony winner Warren Leight (“Side Man”) — will spend all night writing short plays that must be completed by 7 tomorrow morning. Then actors spend the day memorizing lines, rehearsing and tearing their hair out before performing at 8 p.m. By 10, exactly 24 hours later, it’ll all be over.

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Australian actress Naomi Watts, who starred in “The Ring,” King Kong,” and “Eastern Promises,” is the actress who provides the best return for a film studio, according to a list by Forbes.com.

With cash-strapped studios looking for return on their investments, Forbes.com compiled a list of the 10 actresses who provide the best bang for their buck.

They found actresses who commanded the highest prices, like Angelina Jolie who topped Forbes’ list of the best paid actresses after banking $27 million in a year, were outranked by those earning around $5 million and under for a film.

Watts, 41, topped the list after the analysis found she helped the box office make an estimated $44 for every $1 she was paid for her last three major films.

Jennifer Connelly, star of “”Blood Diamond” and “He’s Just Not That Into You,” came second with her films earning about $41 for each dollar she was paid and Rachel McAdams, of “The Notebook” and this year’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” came third with $30 for every $1 earned.

Fourth was Natalie Portman of the new “Star Wars” movies and “The Other Boleyn Girl” with her films making $28 for every $1 she was paid followed by Meryl Streep who made the top five due to the massive box office success of last year’s “Mamma Mia,” earning $27 for every $1 paid.

Rounding out the 10 were Jennifer Aniston ($26 per $1) while films by Halle Berry, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and Hilary Swank all made $23 for every dollar they earned.

Forbes.com said it compiled its list by looking at the 100 biggest stars in Hollywood. To qualify each actress had to have starred in at least three movies in the past five years that opened in more than 500 theatres.

They looked at the star’s estimated earnings, each movie’s estimated budget, and box office, DVD and television earnings to figure out an operating income for each movie.

Thanks to Becka and Brent for alerting me to the fact that Naomi is appearing in a new advert for DirecTV, in a re-enactment of the Empire State building scene from King Kong.

Naomi Watts doesn’t think Hollywood should take a pay cut during the global economic downturn.

The Aussie actress, 40, believes she and her fellow entertainers deserve their fees for spreading a little cheer during the hard times.

She says, “I’m doing a movie now where it’s the least I’ve been paid in about ten years.

“People are willing to go to work now for that when ordinarily that wouldn’t happen. I think we may be more open to negotiation but I think the art world tends to thrive in times of recession.

“We need the escapism. We need stories to be told for us to take ourselves away from the reality of our situations or circumstance.”