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Rachel Hannah Weisz ( "
"; born 7 March 1970)
[There are conflicting sources for the year of Weisz' birth. The British Film Institute and others give 1970 BFI | Film & TV Database | WEISZ, Rachel; a Guardian article gives 1971. Her birth was registered in March quarter of 1970 in Westminster] is an
English actress and model.
[IndieLondon: Definitely Maybe - Rachel Weisz interview - Your London Reviews] She gained wide public recognition after her portrayal of Evelyn "Evy" Carnahan-O'Connell in the films
The Mummy and
The Mummy Returns. In 2001, she starred opposite
Hugh Grant in the hit
About a Boy and continued to garner leading roles in Hollywood productions. Her performance in
The Constant Gardener (2005) won her the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, along with other major motion picture awards.
Early life and background
Weisz was born in
Westminster,
England, and grew up in the
Hampstead Garden Suburb.
[Aslet, Clive. Design for living, The Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2007. Accessed 6 May 2008.] Her mother, Edith Ruth (
née Teich), is a
Vienna-born
Austrian teacher turned
psychotherapist.
[Rachel Weisz biography] Her father, George Weisz, is a
Hungarian-born inventor and engineer. Her parents fled to England during WW2. Weisz's father is
Jewish and her mother, an émigré from Vienna, has been referred to as either
Catholic,
or Jewish (and in the same article, "Half-Italian").
Weisz was raised in a "cerebral Jewish household"
[Joseph, Claudia. Rachel's Weisz guy. 5 June 2005.] and refers to herself as Jewish.
Weisz has a sister, Minnie Weisz, who is an artist.
Weisz was educated at the private
North London Collegiate School. She later boarded at the private
Benenden School and then enrolled at the private
St Paul's Girls' School. She then entered
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated with a
2:1 in English. During her university years she appeared in various student productions, co-founding a student drama group called
Cambridge Talking Tongues, which went on to win a
Guardian Student Drama Award at the
Edinburgh Festival for an improvised piece called
Slight Possession.
Career
Screen
Having already worked for television productions, with parts in such major UK television series as
Inspector Morse (1993), Weisz started her cinema career in 1995 with
Chain Reaction and then appeared in
Bernardo Bertolucci's
Stealing Beauty. She followed this work with more English films including
My Summer with Des, Swept from the Sea, The Land Girls, and
Michael Winterbottom's
I Want You. Although she received favourable critical recognition for her work to this point, her breakout into wide audience recognition came from a popular serio-comic horror movie
The Mummy, in which she played the lead female role alongside
Brendan Fraser. She followed this up with two hits,
The Mummy Returns (2001), which grossed higher than the original, and
About a Boy (2002) with
Hugh Grant. Since then, her other film work has included
Runaway Jury (2003) and
Constantine (2005).
In 2005, Weisz starred in
Fernando Meirelles's
The Constant Gardener, a film adaptation of a
John le Carré thriller
of the same title set in the slums of
Kibera and
Loiyangalani,
Kenya. For this performance, Weisz won the 2006
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,
the 2006
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the 2006
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. In her home country, she was recognised as a leading role for the film according to the nomination from the
BAFTA awards and winnings from the
London Critics Circle Film Awards and
British Independent Film Awards.
The same year, she starred in
The Fountain and also provided the voice for
Saphira in the fantasy film
Eragon. Her subsequent films include the
Wong Kar-wai-directed drama
My Blueberry Nights (in which she played an "anti-
Southern belle")
and director
Rian Johnson's
The Brothers Bloom, in which she plays a wealthy American woman targeted by two con man brothers (
Adrien Brody,
Mark Ruffalo).
She plays the lead role of
Hypatia of Alexandria in the historical drama film
Agora, scheduled to be released in December 2009.
Stage
Her breakthrough role was that of Gilda in
Welsh director
Sean Mathias's 1995
West End revival of
Noel Coward's 1933 play
Design for Living at the
Gielgud Theatre. Her other stage work includes the role of Catherine in a London production of
Tennessee Williams'
Suddenly Last Summer and Evelyn in
Neil LaBute's
The Shape of Things at the
Almeida Theatre (also film) at its, then, temporary location in London's Kings Cross. In 2009 she is currently playing
Blanche DuBois in a
Donmar revival of
A Streetcar Named Desire.
[www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1092107/BAZ-BAMIGBOYE-Rachel-Weisz-Kate-Winslet-Judi-Dench-more.html]
Other
On 7 July 2007, Weisz presented at the
American leg of
Live Earth. She is represented by Independent Models in
London.
Personal life
Weisz is engaged to
American filmmaker and producer
Darren Aronofsky. They have been dating since 2002. They have a son, Henry Chance, born on 31 May 2006 in
New York City.
[Silverman, Stephen M. Rachel Weisz Has a Boy. People.com. 1 June 2006.] The couple reside in the
East Village in
Manhattan. Weisz also serves as a muse to fashion designer
Narciso Rodriguez.
[www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/2008-05/080514-designer-focus-narciso-rodriguez.aspx]
Filmography
Awards and honours
Weisz gained numerous honours for her work in
The Constant Gardener, which included:
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture,
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture. She was also nominated for the
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Furthermore, the critical acclaim she received for her performance also garnered her the
London Critics Circle Film Award for British Actress of the Year, the
British Independent Film Award for Best Actress and the
San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress. Additionally, she was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2006, Weisz was invited to join the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
[Academy Invites 120 to Membership. Oscars.org. 5 July 2005.] Weisz also received the BAFTA LA British Artist of the Year award in 2006.
