Naomi Watts Thinking Quotations

Pain is such an important thing in life. I think that as an artist you have to experience suffering.

You won't find me in a romantic comedy. Those movies don't speak to me. People don't come to talk to me about those scripts, because they probably think I'm this dark, twisted, miserable person.

We're so afraid of death in our culture, but I think if we understand it better, then we'll appreciate the life we have more.

Whatever is said about roles drying up, I intend to keep working. Certainly now the roles couldn't be more interesting - playing mothers, divorcees. I think it's going to be exciting to play a mother of teenagers. The longer your life, the deeper it gets.

In your 20s - and these are generalizations of course - I feel like I didn't care about as many things or as many people, or even myself, as much. There's more recklessness and more ruthlessness; you're not as considerate of how things land with other people I think.

The thing that I love about acting is the fact that I can help people feel things, know themselves or feel less alone. It's my form of expression, in the same way that someone might paint a picture or sing a song in that you're hoping that it moves somebody outside of their own way of thinking.

I think film is a director's medium and the good filmmakers that I like tell the darker stories. Therefore, I'm always inclined to follow people like David Cronenberg.

I was never completely destitute. I think I borrowed money once off a friend, but I've always been quite careful with my money, having come from not much of it.

I don't think of myself as a terribly confident person. But I have a survival mechanism that was instilled in me by my mother.

Sometimes they come to you and it's a small role, so it's about the experience and the journey and mixing with people you know you will learn from. Or sometimes it's a scene in a movie that you think, 'I just have to play this person.'

Who are we when we leave our families? Who do we become? What are we capable of? That's something that never leaves us. It begins at that point in your life when you leave the nest, and I don't think we stop wanting to explore that question.

I think I have better taste now than I did then.

I think in my 20s I was just all about having fun.

I think every time you take on a new role, you're trying to help find that voice and you add your own bits and pieces along the way but with Noah [Baumbach] it's already done.

We're all the same, we all think its better somewhere else; its better being older if you're younger - or its better being younger when we're older.

I don't know that any woman could ever not think about that at some point - even making the choice not to do it and getting to the place of peace of choosing not to be a parent, there would have still been some struggle in between. I'm not a man but I don't think it would occupy their minds as much.

I think whether you've got children or not you're just more aware of others as you get out of your 20s.

What you want, as an actor, is a great leader. I can't bear it when I work with a director who is wishy-washy and says, "What did you think?"

Female roles in comedies are usually quite silly, I think.

Dance was one of the things that led me to acting even though I say I fell in love with acting fairly early on and its true but around 16 and 17 I got heavily into dance but I think I just came into it too late and I was never going to be really great at it so I let it go and the dance led to more acting classes.