Rachel Weisz
Rachel Weisz | |
|---|---|
 photographed in 2007 | |
| Born | Rachel Hannah Weisz |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Partner | Darren Aronofsky (2002-present) |
Rachel Hannah Weisz (Template:Pron-en "vyess"; born 7 March 1970)[1] is an English actress and model.[2] 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.[3] Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a Vienna-born Austrian teacher turned psychotherapist.[4] Her father, George Weisz, is a Hungarian-born inventor and engineer whose family fled to England to escape Nazi persecution. Weisz's father is Jewish and her mother has been referred to as either Catholic,[5] or Jewish (and in the same article, "Half-Italian".[6][7] Weisz was raised in a "cerebral Jewish household"[8] and refers to herself as Jewish.[9][10] 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, 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 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,[11] 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")[11] 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).[11] 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.[12]
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.[13][14] The couple reside in the East Village in Manhattan. Weisz also serves as a muse to fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez.[15]
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.[16] Weisz also received the BAFTA LA British Artist of the Year award in 2006.
References
- ^ 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
- ^ IndieLondon: Definitely Maybe - Rachel Weisz interview - Your London Reviews
- ^ Aslet, Clive. Design for living, The Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2007. Accessed 6 May 2008.
- ^ Rachel Weisz biography
- ^ Lane, Harriet (1999-06-13). "Toast of the tomb". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Goodridge, Mike (2006-11-16). "The virtues of Weisz". ThisIsLondon. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Vulliamy, Ed (2006-02-03). "The Guardian profile: Rachel Weisz". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Joseph, Claudia. Rachel's Weisz guy. 5 June 2005.
- ^ Forrest, Emma (2001). "Rachel Weisz". Index Magazine. Retrieved 23 May 2007.
- ^ Brooks, Xan (2001-01-09). "Girl behaving sensibly". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c Wise, Damon (2007-05-24). "What's Wong with this picture?". The Times. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1092107/BAZ-BAMIGBOYE-Rachel-Weisz-Kate-Winslet-Judi-Dench-more.html
- ^ "Oscar winner Rachel Weisz has baby boy". USA Today. 2006-06-01. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Silverman, Stephen M. Rachel Weisz Has a Boy. People.com. 1 June 2006.
- ^ http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/2008-05/080514-designer-focus-narciso-rodriguez.aspx
- ^ Academy Invites 120 to Membership. Oscars.org. 5 July 2005.
External links
- Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
- Audio book narrators
- Benenden Seniors
- Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
- British expatriates in the United States
- British people of Austrian descent
- British people of Hungarian descent
- English people of Italian descent
- English female models
- English film actors
- English stage actors
- English television actors
- British Jews
- Jewish actors
- Living people
- Old Paulinas
- People from Hampstead
- English Jews
- Hungarian-Austrian Jews
- 1970 births