HOT GALLERY: The Ring Turns 10! Take a Look Back at Naomi Watts Fighting Evil Like Any Good Horror Heroine

Amber Tamblyn as Katie Embry

Amber Tamblyn had her horror movie debut in The Ring. Too bad for her, in most horror movie debuts the opening girl tends to die a grisly death. She was no exception. That is the normal punishment for sexually active girls in horror movies unless they play the lead. Her fate was sealed when she went to the Shelter Mountain Inn and watched that videotape. That’s okay, because Tamblyn parlayed her death into lots of work in Hollywood.

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Amber Tamblyn—Today

Tamblyn comes from a showbiz family and appeared with her dad, Russ Tamblyn, in film and television as a child. She got her big break in television on General Hospital in 1995 and is best known for her role as teenager Joan Girardi in the CBS show Joan of Arcadia. She went on to appear in The Grudge 2 (2006). Her career is still going strong—she had two-season run on House M.D., and she's recently been in Two and a Half Men. Tamblyn is also a published poet and is married to Arrested Development actor David Cross.

Brian Cox as Richard Morgan

Acting veteran Brian Cox plays the suicidal adoptive father of the evil girl Samara (Daveigh Chase), who allegedly started “The Ring” with her deadly videotape. His crazed death scene with Naomi Watts witnessing his self-electrocution could only be accomplished by an actor who worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company as King Lear and as the original Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter (1986).

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Brian Cox—Today

Brian Cox has been acting since the age of 14, when he joined a repertory theater company in Scotland. He works continuously, in both film and television. In 1995 he was in both Rob Roy and Braveheart. In 2002, The Ring was one of six films he appeared in, including the critically acclaimed hit Adaptation. His latest roles are in the TV mini-series Bob Servant Independent and RED 2.

Daveigh Chase as Samara Morgan

Daveigh Chase might not speak much in The Ring—she plays Samara, the evil young girl who is murdered by her mother and thrown down to the bottom of a well—but she does declare in her psychotic video, “Everyone will suffer.” Ironically, that same year Chase was the voice of Lilo in the animated feature Lilo & Stitch, where she plays a much happier, healthier individual. At least she’s not coming out of televisions and scaring people to death.

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Daveigh Chase—Today

Chase has been performing in film and television since her break in The Ring in 2002. Prior to those films, she had worked consistently in television, appearing in hit shows such as Charmed and The Practice. She continued as the voice of Lilo on TV for the 2003-2006 Lilo & Stich: The Series. In complete contrast to her animated series character, she was a costar in the HBO hit series Big Love. Most recently, she starred in the indie film Little Red Wagon (2012) with Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad).

David Dorfman as Aidan

David Dorfman already had plenty of acting experience when he costarred in The Ring with his on-screen mom, Naomi Watts. He’d recently appeared as Gwyneth Paltrow’s son in Bounce (2000). Young Aidan was a convincingly creepy child, but he probably should have warned Naomi Watts earlier in the movie that she shouldn’t try to comfort an evil soul. That’s more for Lifetime Movie Network, not Hollywood horror films.

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David Dorfman—Today

Dorfman went on to reprise his role in The Ring 2 (2005) after he stuck with the horror genre and appeared in the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He acted again with Ring costar Amber Tamblyn in three episodes of Joan of Arcadia. His most recent television appearance was on the series Zombie Roadkill (2010).

Lindsay Frost as Ruth Embry

Veteran television actress Lindsay Frost had a lot of experience in playing distressed women before she appeared as the distraught Ruth Embry, who's devastated by the death of her daughter Katie (Amber Tamblyn). Ruth begs her sister Rachel (Naomi Watts) to investigate Katie’s death, starting the deadly chain of events in Rachel’s life. Funny, though—Rachel never does bother reporting back to her sister everything she discovered. But then she’s too busy trying to save her own child…

Lindsay Frost—2005

Lindsay Frost got her start on the soap opera As the World Turns and appeared on numerous television shows through the 1980s and 1990s. After her role in The Ring, she worked on the hit ABC series Lost and costarred in the popular NBC series Crossing Jordan. Other notable appearances include Boston Legal and The Unit. She was the narrator on the video game Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Martin Henderson as Noah

New Zealander Martin Henderson had been in numerous Australian television shows before landing his role as the reluctant dad Noah in The Ring. It is only fitting he die a grisly death, as he had been such a wishy-washy boyfriend and father.

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Martin Henderson—Today

Henderson costarred in a string of films following the success of The Ring, including three 2004 films: Torque, Perfect Opposites, and Bride & Prejudice. In 2005 he acted in Little Fish with Cate Blanchett. Shonda Rhimes cast him in a starring role on the short-lived ABC series Off the Map (2011), but he was back appearing in the Australian television series Rake this year. His most recent role was in The Red Road.

Naomi Watts as Rachel Keller

Investigative reporter and single mom Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) willingly enters into a world of horror to help solve the mystery of her niece Katie’s (Amber Tamblyn) death. She manages to pull Noah (Martin Henderson), her estranged boyfriend and father of her child, into the mystery and exposes her son to the deadly videotape she carelessly left in her home. Is it a good thing she can empathize with a psychotic killer spirit? Probably for the filmmakers, since she propagates the curse by having her son make a copy of the tape in order to cheat death.

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Naomi Watts—Today

Watts’s role in the critically acclaimed 2003 film 21 Grams earned her an Academy Award nomination. She is British but spent her high school years in Australia and went to school with Nicole Kidman. She’s one of Hollywood’s top actresses, working constantly in films. When she’s not acting, she is a goodwill ambassador for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Her latest role is in St. Vincent alongside Bill Murray.

Pauley Perrette as Beth

While she might have only had a small appearance in The Ring, at least she didn’t meet an untimely death on-screen. She’s lucky, considering she was linked with Noah (Martin Henderson), the man who couldn’t decide what he wanted. Ironically she had bigger television roles before The Ring in quirky shows like Special Unit 2 and the hit television series 24.

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Pauley Perrette—Today

Before completely embracing an entertainment career, Perrette was starting a master's degree in criminal science—ironic, since Perrette has gone on to play a forensic scientist on the long-running hit television series NCIS.