Naomi Watts received the second Donostia Award of the San Sebastián Festival
Tonight, in the Kursaal Auditorium, the actress and producer Naomi Watts received the second Donostia Award of the San Sebastián Festival's 74th edition at a ceremony presented by the actor Jon Plazaola. The filmmaker JA Bayona presented the Festival's highest honour to an actor who dedicated the accolade to the late David Lynch, while assuring that "the pleasure of being an actress is spending your life trying to inhabit other people and somehow, along the way, to discover more of yourself". She went on to say that "women of my age need to see ourselves reflected on screens, and I'm grateful to be part of shifting that narrative. Thirty years ago I had hopes and dreams, I just never imagined they would take me this far", she admitted.
At the start of her speech, Watts assured that "receiving a lifetime achievement award is a slightly strange thing when you still feel like you're in the middle of it, or just getting started even". As well as thanking JA Bayona and recalling the adventure of shooting under his orders in The Impossible (2012), the actress remembered the difficulties of her early days until David Lynch directed her in Mulholland Drive (2001). "All the wounds from rejection now appeared as growth. He gave me the role you couldn't even dream of. David changed my life", she said.
"He gave me a different understanding of what it meant to act: to trust instinct, to embrace uncertainty, to not be afraid of the strange or the unexplained. But more than anything, he believed in something in me before I fully believed in myself. That is a gift you never forget. So this award is very much about him. David, I miss you", she said, referring to the filmmaker who died in January 2025.
She also thanked Ben Shirinian, who makes his directorial debut with The Housewife (Donostia Award Screening), and other filmmakers who trusted in her, such as Michael Haneke, David Cronenberg, Peter Jackson and Alejandro Gómez Iñárritu, as well as "the crews who make the magic happen" in the cinema, which is one of the greatest and most unpredictable art forms there is. "You can prepare for everything, and then something unexpected happens, and suddenly you're alive. You spend your life trying to inhabit other people, and somehow, along the way, you discover more of yourself. That, to me, is the joy of being an actor", she confessed.
Naomi Watts assured that thirty years ago she had "hopes and dreams", but that she never imagined they would take her "this far". She therefore said that she feels "deeply moved and enormously grateful" for the Donostia Award and for having the "privilege" of doing what she loves. "Cinema is the most beautiful art form. We need storytelling now more than ever. And I'm just grateful that a woman of my age ― despite what I was told at 31, when I was launching Mulholland Drive, that it'd all be over by 40 ― can be part of shifting that narrative. We need to see ourselves reflected on screens. And perhaps the greatest thing I can say is that after all these years, I still want to know what happens next", she said.
Bayona makes his dream come true
Before presenting her with the award, JA Bayona made an emotional speech in which he said he was living "a dream come true". "A while back I dreamt that Naomi Watts was receiving the Donostia Award and that it was me who was giving it to her. I spoke about the extraordinary list of directors with whom Naomi has worked. An impressive list, only surpassed by her talent", he said.
Bayona recalled working with the actress when The Impossible premiered out of competition in the Official Selection. "There is one moment in that shoot that still moves me when I remember it", he admitted. "After being dragged along by the tsunami, her character, María, is rescued by two elderly Thai women who were not professional actresses. Naomi took her lead from the authentic nature of the situation and worked her magic. She started sobbing inconsolably. No-one was following the script any more. There were no characters, only a broken woman seeking the comfort of strangers. That force of nature appears when Naomi trusts", stressed the director, for whom that experience changed the way he understands the cinema and the way he directs actors and actresses.
