Saturday night was one of the most thrilling in the city of San Sebastián. The 2026 San Sebastián International Film Festival crowned a standout actress, Naomi Watts herself, who took home the Donostia Award for her professional career spanning more than thirty years.
The actress received the accolade delighted and deeply grateful to the people who have worked with her over the years. Among those she mentioned were the director of ‘The Impossible’, J.A. Bayona, as well as the then-very-young Tom Holland, whom Watts keeps fond memories of. But if there is someone to whom she has been especially grateful upon receiving the prize, it is the man who says he completely changed her life: the renowned David Lynch.
In His Memory
During her speech for the prize, Watts took a moment to reflect on how challenging her early days in Hollywood were. “There were so many rejections. A lot of people told me I wouldn’t make it,” she recalls with a heaviness, referring to the small roles she played early on. “[David] saw me, and all those wounds caused by so many rejections became an opportunity for growth. He gave me the role I could not even dream of. Truly, it changed my life.”
The moment everything changed for Watts came when she collaborated with the director on ‘Mulholland Drive’, back in 2001, which permanently altered the way she worked. “He helped me understand in a different way what acting means, to trust the instinct, to embrace uncertainty, and not fear the strange or the inexplicable. But beyond that, he believed in something that was already in me before I fully believed in myself, and that is a gift that is never forgotten. So tonight I truly feel that this prize has a lot to do with David.”
Forever Lynch
David Lynch passed away last year, a loss that was hard for many to accept, but which at the time left a strong mark on Naomi Watts. The actress has already revealed that the director was ready to return to work and had projects in mind that he shared with her, but we will never see them come to fruition.
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