Anguish management

Naomi Watts has carved out a niche playing set-upon blondes and struggling heroines. Kelsey Munro looks at why torment on screen comes naturally to her. Naomi Watts has become the directors' choice to play pretty women having an awful time. She was a grief-stricken widow in 21 Grams; a journalist tormented by a girl from beyond the grave in both The Ring movies; a midwife who tangles with the Russian mafia in last year's Eastern Promises; and the mother in a family tortured by psychopaths in the coming Funny Games. If that weren't bad enough, she's soon to be brutalised by malevolent seagulls, reprising the Tippi Hedren role in a remake of Hitchcock classic The Birds.