Rachel Weisz
Rachel Weisz | |
---|---|
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Years active | 1993 – present |
Partner | Darren Aronofsky |
Children | Henry Chance Aronofsky (born 2006) |
Rachel Weisz (born March 7, 1971) is an Academy Award-winning English actress. She became well-known after her roles in the Hollywood films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and has since continued appearing in major film roles.
Biography
Early life
Weisz (pronounced "Vice") was born in London, England and grew up in Hampstead. Her father, George Weisz, is a Hungarian-born inventor whose family fled to England to escape Nazi persecution. Her mother, Edith Ruth, is a Vienna-born Austrian psychoanalyst and aspiring actress. Weisz's father is Jewish and her mother has been referred to as either Catholic,[1] Jewish,[2][3] or having Jewish ancestry.[4] Weisz has a sister, Minnie Weisz, who is an artist.
Weisz was educated at North London Collegiate School. She was then sent to Benenden School and eventually settled when she was about 13 in 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
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. Having already worked for television, with parts in major UK series such 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. Since then she has starred in a number of films including The Mummy Returns (2001)(which grossed higher than the original), Enemy at the Gates (2001), About a Boy (2002), Runaway Jury (2003) and Constantine (2005). Her 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).
In 2005, Weisz starred in 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 role, Weisz won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,[5] 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 recognized 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.
In 2006 Weisz was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[6]
In 2006, she starred in The Fountain and also provided the voice for Saphira in Eragon. Her upcoming films include the Wong Kar-wai-directed drama My Blueberry Nights (in which she plays an "anti-Southern Belle")[5] 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).[5]
On 7 July, 2007 Weisz presented at the American leg of Live Earth.
Personal life
Weisz is engaged to American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. They have been dating since 2004. They have a son, Henry Chance, born on May 31, 2006 in New York City.[7][8] The couple reside in the East Village in Manhattan.
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1996 | Chain Reaction | Dr. Lily Sinclair | |
Stealing Beauty | Miranda Fox | ||
1998 | Swept from the Sea | Amy Foster | |
I Want You | Helen | ||
1999 | The Mummy | Evelyn "Evy" Carnahan | |
Sunshine | Greta | ||
2001 | Beautiful Creatures | Petula | |
Enemy at the Gates | Tania Chernova | ||
The Mummy Returns | Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell/Princess Nefertiri | ||
2002 | About a Boy | Rachel | |
2003 | Confidence | Lily | |
The Shape of Things | Evelyn Ann Thompson | ||
Runaway Jury | Marlee | ||
2004 | Envy | Debbie Dingman | |
2005 | Constantine | Angela Dodson/Isabel Dodson | |
The Constant Gardener | Tessa Quayle | ||
2006 | The Fountain | Izzi | |
Eragon | Saphira (voice) | ||
2007 | Fred Claus | Wanda | |
2008 | My Blueberry Nights | Sue Lynn | Release date: February 13, 2008 |
Definitely, Maybe | Summer Hartley | Release date: February 14, 2008 | |
The Brothers Bloom | Penelope | Post-production | |
The Lovely Bones | Abigail Salmon | Filming began October, 2007[9] | |
Luna | Julia Butterfly Hill | Pre-production[10] | |
2009 | Dirt Music | Georgie Jutland | Pre-production |
Sin City 2 | Ava Lord | On hold[11] | |
The Colossus | Olive Schreiner | On hold |
Awards
Won
Year | Award | Film |
---|---|---|
2006 | London Critics Circle Film Award for British Actress of the Year | The Constant Gardener |
2006 | British Independent Film Award for Best Actress | The Constant Gardener |
2006 | Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture | The Constant Gardener |
2006 | Screen Actors Guild Award for Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role | The Constant Gardener |
2005 | Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | The Constant Gardener |
2006 | San Diego Film Critics Society Awards for Best Supporting Actress | The Constant Gardener |
Nominations
Year | Award | Film |
---|---|---|
2006 | BAFTA Film Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role | The Constant Gardener |
2006 | Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress | The Constant Gardener |
References
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Wikinews-logo.svg/40px-Wikinews-logo.svg.png)
- ^ Lane, Harriet (1999-06-13). "Toast of the tomb". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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(help) - ^ Goodridge, Mike (2006-11-16). "The virtues of Weisz". ThisIsLondon. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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(help) - ^ Vulliamy, Ed (2006-02-03). "The Guardian profile: Rachel Weisz". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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(help) - ^ Hiller, Jordan (5/03). "What's Movies that bang - The Shape of Things (2003)". Bang It Out. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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(help) - ^ a b c Wise, Damon (2007-05-24). "What's Wong with this picture? Her movie My Blueberry Nights opened Cannes. Next, Rachel Weisz will play a geek among conmen". Times Online. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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(help) - ^ http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2006/06.07.01a.html
- ^ wire reports (2006-06-01). "Oscar winner Rachel Weisz has baby boy". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
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(help) - ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1185721,00.html
- ^ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117966754.html?categoryid=10&cs=1
- ^ http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20070522/117982402100.html
- ^ http://www.www.cinematical.com/2007/05/30/its-official-sin-city-2-has-been-delayed/
External links
- 1971 births
- Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
- Benenden Seniors
- Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film)
- British expatriates in the United States
- English film actors
- English Jews
- English models
- English stage actors
- English television actors
- Jewish actors
- Hungarian Jews
- Living people
- Old Paulinas
- People from Hampstead