Naomi Watts received the Donostia Award at the San Sebastián Festival and dedicated it to David Lynch. She used the ceremony to call for more leading roles and stronger screen representation for women over 50.
Naomi Watts used one of the San Sebastián Festival's biggest moments to challenge the way cinema pushes women aside as they grow older. At 57, she received the Donostia Award and made representation the focus of her speech. Her point was direct: women need to see themselves on screen while they are still being offered leading roles. As El Cultural reported, Watts argued that stories about women over 50 must continue to be told.
José Antonio Bayona, the Spanish director who worked with Watts on 'Lo imposible', presented the award. Their reunion added a personal note to the ceremony. Watts, though, placed the focus beyond her own career. She described the award as part of a change in the industry, one that lets women her age continue to carry films instead of being pushed into secondary roles. According to the official San Sebastián Festival account, the ceremony took place at the Kursaal Auditorium during the 74th edition of the festival.
The 2026 Donostia Award ceremony for Naomi Watts was held at the Kursaal Auditorium during the 74th San Sebastián Festival.
Her speech also answered an old prediction about her future.
Watts recalled that after filming 'Mulholland Drive' at 31, she was told her career would be over by 40. Instead, the film became the turning point that brought her to David Lynch after a decade of rejections. She dedicated the Donostia Award to Lynch. She credited him with giving her a role she had not imagined possible and with seeing something in her before she saw it herself. RTVE linked that opportunity to what it called the role of Watts's life, which moved her career to a new level.
Watts described Lynch's influence as more than a major career opportunity. She said his approach changed how she understood acting. It taught her to trust instinct, accept uncertainty and not fear what is strange or inexplicable. That experience helped shape a career that later included work with Michael Haneke in 'Funny Games', David Cronenberg in 'Promesas del Este', Alejandro González Iñárritu in '21 gramos', Peter Jackson in 'King Kong' and Bayona.
Watts used the ceremony to address ageism in the film industry, insisting that stories about women over 50 should remain part of cinema rather than being pushed out of view.
Watts also spoke about Bayona's place in her career. She recalled trusting him from their first day of work and said the memories of that production are among the most beautiful she keeps. Bayona said working with her changed the way he directed actors. It also changed how he understood cinema.
The San Sebastián appearance also introduced Watts's latest film.
In 'La esposa perfecta' ('The Housewife'), directed by Ben Shirinian, she plays a housewife drawn into a journalistic investigation involving an alleged Nazi officer living clandestinely in New York. The role puts her inside another story of discovery. Her character joins a dangerous search and learns more about herself along the way.
Watts said acting still attracts her because living through other people's lives reveals new parts of her own. She said that process is not finished. She is still learning and growing. The official festival report captured the same idea in her description of the joy of spending a life living through other people and discovering more of herself along the way. That connects the film's subject with the point she made at the ceremony: experience is not a reason to remove an actress from the center of a story.
The context of the award was examined in an earlier report, which also noted Bayona's role in presenting the honor. Watts is the second recipient of the Donostia Award at this edition of the festival after Werner Herzog. The 2026 program therefore placed Watts and Herzog among the two recipients of the festival's honorary award.
Watts turned an honorary ceremony into a clear statement about the industry. Her career provides the evidence. She was once told that her prospects had an expiry date, then went on to work with Lynch, Haneke, Cronenberg, Iñárritu, Jackson and Bayona. Age still shapes expectations in cinema. Her own words made that clear. Awards and leading roles carry more weight when they recognize women whose careers were expected to narrow but kept expanding. San Sebastián gave Watts a trophy. She used the stage to say that women must remain visible at the center of the story.
