Way Back When: Naomi Watts, Best Actress Nominee

We took notice of Naomi Watts' immense talents with films like 'The Ring' and 'I Heart Huckabees,' and you can see her next in the upcoming disaster drama 'The Impossible' alongside Ewan McGregor. In today's Way Back When, however, we take a look back at her earlier roles.

'Brides of Christ'

A young Naomi Watts landed one of her first roles in the Australian TV miniseries 'Brides of Christ' in 1991. Watts played Frances, a girl at an all-girls Catholic school in the '60s. The miniseries followed a nun named Diane who joins the monastery at a crucial time in the faith, with the Vietnam war raging and the church controversy over abortion and contraception. Yes, yes, drama is all well and good, but check out baby-faced Naomi Watts in the video below. We can hardly believe it's her:

'Flirting'

Watts followed up her performance as a school girl as... another school girl in the 1991 film 'Flirting,' which co-starred a few other familiar (and very young) faces, like Nicole Kidman, Thandie Newton and Noah Taylor. The film follows a young man who is sent to boarding school, and deals with his horrible teachers and bullying from his classmates, until he strikes up an affair with a young African girl.

'Home and Away'

Naomi Watts was very busy in 1991, and next appeared on the Australian TV series 'Home and Away,' which followed the lives, loves, and heartbreak of the residents and teens in the small coastal town of Summer Bay in New South Wales, Australia. She appeared in 19 episodes as Julie Gibson, and you can check out a bit of her work below:

'Tank Girl'

In 1995, Watts played the role of Jet Girl in the movie adaptation of the cult comic book 'Tank Girl,' starring Lori Petty as the titular heroine with a fondness for tanks and big guns, and Malcolm McDowell as the villain (duh). The movie follows Tank Girl as she fights an evil corporation that controls the world's water supply. Jet Girl works for the corporation as a soldier, but leaves their ranks to help Tank Girl on her quest.

'Children of the Corn: The Gathering'

Watts kept it campy with this 1996 sequel, 'Children of the Corn: The Gathering,' aka 'Children of the Corn IV.' In the direct-to-video film, she plays Grace, a woman whose young sister is one of the many children mysteriously afflicted with convulsions in a small town. Following the mass affliction, the kids start to become evil and try to raise their leader to overthrow the adults.

'Bermuda Triangle'

In this made-for-TV movie, a family's boat sinks during a terrible storm in the Caribbean, stranding them on an island in the "27th dimension," whatever that means. So they just settle in and live there, and then Naomi Watts makes out with this guy: