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Rachel Weisz Profile |
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Birth Date: March 7, 1971
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Birth Place: London, England, UK
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Birth Name: Rachel Weisz
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Height: 5'7"
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Biography |
Rachel Weisz was born in London, England
on March 7, 1971 to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe;
her Viennese mother is a psychoanalyst while her Hungarian
father is an inventor credited with inventing life-saving
respiratory medical equipment.
At the age of 15, Rachel began working as a model, but a
change of heart led to acting. Her parents were adamant
about her receiving a college education before pursuing
acting (incidentally, her mother originally wanted to act as
well), so she studied literature at Cambridge's Trinity
Hall.
The Cambridge student got involved in drama at the same
time, co-founding a theater group known as Talking Tongues;
she co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the productions.
Some of the Talking Tongues' works were performed at the
Edinburgh Festival, and in 1991, Rachel won a student drama
award for a play she wrote and starred in.
Rachel got her first big break in a theater production of
Noel Coward's Design for Living, for which she received the
Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer. She then moved to
television, where she starred in the 1993 made-for-TV movie
Dirtysomething and the BBC miniseries The Scarlet and the
Black. She then appeared in the series Inspector Morse in
1993, and in the made-for-TV movies White Goods and
Seventeen in 1994.
With nothing more than television roles to her name, Rachel
was cast as a junior executive in the science-fiction film
Death Machine in 1995.
But her big breakthrough came in 1996, when she was cast in
Bernardo Bertolucci's stunning coming-of-age film, Stealing
Beauty. Although the film's star was Liv Tyler, Rachel still
managed to steal a bit of the beautiful spotlight as Miranda
Fox, a snobbish artist's daughter.
Rachel was next cast in a string of smaller movies (not
necessarily with smaller actors), such as 1996's Chain
Reaction, co-starring Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman, as
well as 1997's Swept from the Sea, Going All the Way (in
which she played Ben Affleck's girlfriend and starred with
Rose McGowan), and Bent, in which she played a prostitute.
After roles in The Land Girls and I Want You in 1998, Rachel
Weisz leapt to blockbuster status and international fame
with her lead female role in the unraveled hit of 1999, The
Mummy.
Rachel returned to her roots as a Hungarian Jew in the epic
film Sunshine (1999), where she starred opposite Ralph
Fiennes in a role that garnered her a Genie Award nomination
for Best Supporting Actress in 2000. That same year, she was
also nominated for a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for
Best Actress in an Action Movie and a Saturn Award for Best
Actress, both for The Mummy.
After starring in Beautiful Creatures in 2000, Rachel rang
in the New Year by co-starring with Joseph Fiennes (another
Fiennes brother) and Jude Law (her Primrose Hill neighbor)
in the WWII Battle of Stalingrad film, Enemy at the Gates.
Although the latter didn't blow up at the box office, the
sequel to The Mummy opened with record highs in 2001,
breaking box-office records. Rachel returned with Brendan
Fraser as Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell/Princess Nefertiri,
making audiences scramble to see her, as well as The Rock
and Patricia Velasquez.
Despite Rachel's success in film, she still continued to
take to the stage; she starred in an adaptation of Tennessee
Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, for which she earned the
1999 Barclays Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress, as
well as the London production of The Shape of Things, in
which she starred as an American sculptress.
Rachel was next seen in About a Boy (2002) with Hugh Grant
and Toni Collette, The Shape of Things (2003), Confidence
(2003), Runaway Jury (2003), Envy (2004), and Constantine
(2005) with Keanu Reeves.
In 2005, Rachel can also be seen in The Constant Gardener
and The Fountain.
Rachel has also graced the cover of several magazines such
as Tatler and Bikini, and despite her flair for posing, she
declined Hugh Hefner's offer to appear in his renowned
magazine.
So the entire male population didn't get to see dear Rachel,
but some lucky males have been allegedly romantically linked
to her, including her My Summer With Des co-star Neil
Morrissey, her I Want You co-star, Alessandro Nivola, her
Chain Reaction and Constantine co-star Keanu Reeves, and
American Beauty British director, Sam Mendes. In June 2005,
she got engaged to Requiem for a Dream director Darren
Aronofsky. |
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Other
Information |
Last name is pronounced "Vice."
Studied English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University.
Dated director Sam Mendes. [2001]
Studying English at Cambridge University, Weisz formed the
Talking Tongues theater company and at 1991's Edinburgh
Festival won a student drama award for a play she wrote and
acted in.
Lives in a US$450,000 London apartment and drives a Jaguar.
She has recently become a patron of The X Appeal, which is
the official charity of the Royal College of Radiologists.
Her father invented respirators that supplied their own
oxygen and machines that sense land mines.
1998: Named as one of European films' Shooting Stars by the
European Film Promotion Board.
She was awarded the 1994 London Critics Circle Theatre Award
(Drama Theatre) for Most Promising Newcomer for her
performance in Design for Living.
Educated at the prestigious St Paul's Girls School in
London. Was in the same class as actress Emily Mortimer.
Lives in New York with director Darren Aronofsky (2004).
Ranked #30 in Stuff magazine's 102 Sexiest Women in the
World (2002).
Drives an old, black Jaguar 4.2 Sovereign with pepper-pot
wheels.
Her Austrian-born mother is of part Italian descent
Is the face of Revlon (2005).
Announced on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992) that
she was five months pregnant and engaged to Darren Aronofsky.
[January 6, 2006]
When asked who her idols were, she named Gena Rowlands,
Katharine Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, Shirley MacLaine, Ingrid
Bergman, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
Has starred opposite both Fiennes brothers, with Ralph
Fiennes in The Constant Gardener (2005) and Joseph Fiennes
in Enemy at the Gates (2001). |
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