Naomi Watts Nearly Quit Hollywood After ‘Flunking Auditions’ for 10 Years and Her Agent Saying ‘You’re Too Intense.’ Then She Met David Lynch: I Was ‘Desperate’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Naomi Watts revealed on “Live With Kelly and Mark” (via Entertainment Weekly) that she nearly quit acting before she met the late David Lynch, who cast her as the lead in 2001’s “Mulholland Drive.” The film’s critical acclaim and global success turned Watts into a star after “10 years” of “flunking auditions.” Lynch died on Jan.

15 at 78 years old. “I wouldn’t have stayed [in Hollywood] had I not met David Lynch,” Watts said. “The chips were down, it was 10 years into flunking auditions [and] nothing was happening…I was literally alienating people.

I was making them uncomfortable because I was so like, ‘I need a job! I need a job!'” Things got so bad for Watts “that my agent at the time said, ‘You’re too intense.

You’re making people uncomfortable,'” the Oscar nominee remembered. “Yeah, I need a job. I’m desperate, I need to work. I planned on going home multiple times.” “Long story short, David Lynch called me in and has a very different way of casting,” she continued. “He sat me down and just looked me in the eyes and asked me questions, and most of the time I was like, ‘How do I get out of your way?