Naomi Watts Dedicates Donostia Award to Her ‘Mulholland Drive’ Director David Lynch: “I Miss You”

British star Naomi Watts dedicated her Donostia Award to the late, great David Lynch on Saturday night.

Watts picked up San Sebastián Film Festival’s most prestigious honor before a screening of her latest feature, The Housewife. She was introduced by J.A. Bayona, the Spanish filmmaker who directed Watts in 2012’s The Impossible, which would earn the actress her second Oscar nomination.

“Naomi, I want to thank you for having trusted that young director who was scared to death,” said Bayona, who spoke touchingly about their time shooting the project, based on a real story from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. “For being the best travel companion I’ve ever had, and for teaching me something that, today, I’m still looking [for] every time I start working in front of a new actor. I admire you deeply, but above all, I love you. And tonight I can also say that I am fulfilling a dream, a dream come true.”

Watts was emotional as she came to collect the award and thanked Bayona for his kind words. “Shooting in Spain with incredible crews, getting to know the Thai community, so many full, brilliant memories, and I loved it all, the whole experience, even the hard stuff,” she said about The Impossible, which grossed over $198 million at the global box office upon its release. “Even doing 30 takes in the water tank, submerged,” she laughed, shouting out her co-star Tom Holland, who made his live-action debut in the film aged 15. “Tom Holland called it the best water park he ever went to. I called it pure pain!”

The Briton continued that it “wasn’t an easy trajectory” making a name for herself in Hollywood. “There was so much rejection. A lot of people telling me I wasn’t going to make it,” she said. After 10 years of back-to-back rejections, everything changed when she met her Mulholland Drive director, David Lynch. “[He] saw me, and all those wounds from all that rejection now appeared as growth. He gave me the role that you couldn’t even dream for. He really just changed my life. He gave me a different understanding of what it meant to act, to trust instinct, to embrace uncertainty, and to not be afraid of the strange or the unexplained. But more than that, he believed in something in me before I fully believed in myself, and that is a gift that you never forget. So tonight, I do really feel like this award is very much about David.”

Watts, now 57, also added that she is grateful, “as a woman of my age, despite what I was told at 31 when I was launching Mulholland Drive — that it’d be all dried up and finished at the age of 40 — I’m grateful beyond words to be part of shifting that narrative,” she beamed. Her rallying cry continued: “We need to see ourselves. Women are consumers of films and storytelling too. We want to see ourselves reflected on screen.”

After thanking festival organizers, Watts vowed to the applauding audience: “I still have lots more in me and I’m still reaching for the stars. So thank you for giving me the privilege of doing what I love to do. And David Lynch,” she added, holding up her Donostia Award, “I miss you!”

The Housewife, directed by Ben Shirinian and co-starring Tye Sheridan, Michael Imperioli, and Luke Evans, is based on a true story and set in 1964 New York. When a young journalist tracks down a potential Nazi officer living secretly in Queens, he befriends the lead suspect’s charming wife. But the investigation soon takes a disturbing turn.

On honoring Watts, the festival said she combines “independent films with big productions on both the big and the small screen.” Her first Oscar nomination came through Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003).

She achieved international fame thanks to Mulholland Drive (2001), but has also worked with filmmakers including Peter Jackson (King Kong), David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises), Clint Eastwood (J. Edgar), Michael Haneke (Funny Games), Audrey Diwan (Emmanuelle), Noah Baumbach (While We’re Young) and Rodrigo García, with whom she came to San Sebastián in 2009 to close the official selection out of competition with Mother & Child.

The 2026 San Sebastián International Film Festival runs Sep. 18-26 and kicked off with a Donostia Award for Werner Herzog on Friday, before a screening of Fatih Akin’s Ghost Song. The Hollywood Reporter caught up with outgoing festival director José Luis Rebordinos about his legacy and taking a political stance here.