Naomi Ellen Watts

• 2003–2007: Success in career
"You'd better know why you're here as an actor ... I'm here to work out my shit, what my problems are and know who I am, so by cracking open these characters perhaps that shines a light on it a little bit better ... I know myself. I mean, of course I know myself better but the journey and search continue because hopefully we're evolving and growing all the time."
The following year, she took the part of Julia Cook in Gregor Jordan's Australian film Ned Kelly opposite Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush; as well as starring in the Merchant-Ivory film Le Divorce, portraying Roxeanne de Persand, a poet who is abandoned by her husband Charles-Henri de Persand at the time she is pregnant. Roxeanne and her sister Isabel (Kate Hudson) dispute the ownership of a painting by Georges de La Tour with the family of Henri's lover. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C" rating and lamented Watts' performance: "I'm disappointed to report that Hudson and Watts have no chemistry as sisters, perhaps because Watts never seems like the expatriate artiste she's supposed to be playing".
Conversely, her performance opposite Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro in director Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2003 drama 21 Grams earned Watts an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress later that year. In the story, told in a non-lineal manner, she portrayed Cristina Peck, a grief-stricken woman living a suburban life after the killing of her husband and two children by Jack Jordan (Benicio del Toro), who started a relationship with the critically ill academic mathematician Paul Rivers (Sean Penn). She said of the nomination, "It's far beyond what I ever dreamed for – that would have been too far fetched". She also was nominated for Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, as well as many other nominations and acclaim. The New York Times praised her: "Because Ms. Watts reinvents herself with each performance, it's easy to forget how brilliant she is. She has a boldness that comes from a lack of overemphasis, something actresses sometimes do to keep up with Mr. Penn". The San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Watts is riveting, but she's much better in scenes of extreme emotion than in those requiring subtlety."