Rachel Weisz

• 1. Introduction

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  Rachel Weisz first made headlines in 1984 by saying no. She was a teenage model who had started working at the age of 14, and she turned down an offer to star in King David opposite Richard Gere. The British actress, born on the 7th of March 1970, would go on to collect an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Laurence Olivier Award. Films she has appeared in have grossed over $3.5 billion worldwide. Her career runs from independent dramas to franchise blockbusters to the London and Broadway stage. What kind of family produced a performer with that range? Why did a Cambridge English graduate go on to study under a master clown? And how does an actress move between mummies, Marvel and Tennessee Williams without losing her footing?

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• 2. Formative Years

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  Rachel Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb, in a family shaped by flight from the Nazis. Both of her parents arrived in the United Kingdom as children around 1938, before the outbreak of World War II. Her father, George Weisz, was a Hungarian Jewish mechanical engineer and inventor who pioneered a type of ventilator. Her mother, Edith Ruth Teich, came originally from Vienna, Austria, and worked as a teacher before becoming a psychotherapist.

  The scholar and social activist James Parkes helped Edith's family leave Austria for England. Her father, Alexander Teich, was a Jewish activist who had served as a secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students. Edith's mother was Catholic and of Italian ancestry, and Edith was raised in the Catholic church. She formally converted to Judaism when she married George.

  Minnie Weisz, Rachel's younger sister, became a visual artist. Their parents valued the arts and drew the children into family debates, so that each would learn to form opinions of their own. Rachel's schooling changed course more than once. She left North London Collegiate School, spent a year at Benenden School, and completed her A-levels at St Paul's Girls School.

  In 1988 Weisz matriculated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she read English and graduated with upper second-class honours. Her contemporaries included Sacha Baron Cohen, Alexander Armstrong, Emily Maitlis, Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc, Richard Osman and Ben Miller, whom she briefly dated.

  Weisz co-founded a student drama group called Cambridge Talking Tongues. At the 1991 Edinburgh Festival Fringe the group won a Guardian Student Drama Award for Slight Possession. Weisz wrote that improvised piece herself, and David Farr directed it.

  She then trained under the master clown Philippe Gaulier at École Philippe Gaulier. Her first professional credits, on stage and on television, arrived in the early 1990s.

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• 3. Stage Work

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  Gilda, the heroine of Noël Coward's Design for Living, gave Weisz her breakthrough on stage in 1994. Sean Mathias directed the revival at the Gielgud Theatre. Weisz received the London Critics' Circle award for the most promising newcomer, and a contemporary review described her portrayal as "wonderful".

  Five years later, Weisz played Catherine in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer at the Donmar Warehouse. What's on Stage called her "captivating". It said she brought "a degree of credibility to a difficult part".

  Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things took her to the Almeida Theatre in 1999, when the company was temporarily based in London's King's Cross. Her role as Evelyn Ann Thompson brought her a Theatre World Award. CurtainUp described her as "a sophisticated, independent artist" with "great stage presence". She played Evelyn again at the Promenade Theatre in 2001, and she later starred in the 2003 film adaptation of the play.

  A Streetcar Named Desire in 2009 gave Weisz the part of Blanche DuBois, in Rob Ashford's revival at the Donmar Warehouse. Critics praised the performance, and the Daily Telegraph noted that she "rises to the challenge magnificently". It won her the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress.

  On Broadway in 2013, she appeared in Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, alongside her husband, Daniel Craig. The production opened on the 27th of October 2013 and closed on the 5th of January 2014. Box office receipts of $17.5 million made it the second highest grossing Broadway play of 2013. Her stage credits run through 2016, when she played Susan Traherne in Plenty at The Public Theater.

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• 4. Breaking Into Film

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  Advocates II, a television film from 1992, was one of Weisz's first screen jobs. She then appeared in the Inspector Morse episode "Twilight of the Gods". Next came the BBC's steamy period drama Scarlet and Black, in which she acted alongside Ewan McGregor. Her first film was the hour-long BBC Screen Two production Dirty Something, made in 1992. Her first big-screen role was a minor part in the 1994 film Death Machine.

  Chain Reaction in 1996 gave her a first major film role. Reviews were mostly negative, and the film holds a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was a minor financial success. Weisz next played Miranda Fox in Stealing Beauty, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, where she was first labelled an "English rose".

  Swept from the Sea arrived in 1997, followed in 1998 by the British television comedy-drama My Summer with Des. Michael Winterbottom's crime film I Want You and David Leland's The Land Girls, based on Angela Huth's book, filled out the decade. In 1999 she played Greta in the historical film Sunshine.

  The Mummy, also released in 1999, was her international breakthrough. She played the female lead opposite Brendan Fraser. Her character, Evelyn Carnahan, is an English Egyptologist who leads an expedition to the fictional ancient Egyptian city of Hamunaptra in search of an ancient book.

  Variety criticised the direction. Its review said the actors "have been directed to broad, undisciplined performances". It added that "Buffoonery hardly seems like Weisz's natural domain, as the actress strains for comic effects that she can't achieve".

  Audiences did not share that reservation. The sequel, The Mummy Returns, followed in 2001 and grossed an estimated $433 million worldwide, against $260 million for the original. In 2006 Weisz rejected an offer to star in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor because of script issues. The part eventually went to Maria Bello.

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• 5. Oscar and Misfires

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  Beautiful Creatures in 2000 gave Weisz the role of Petula, and Enemy at the Gates in 2001 cast her as Tania Chernova. In 2002 she appeared with Hugh Grant in About a Boy, based on Nick Hornby's 1998 novel. A year later she played Marlee in Runaway Jury, adapted from John Grisham's legal thriller novel.

  Envy, a 2004 comedy, failed at the box office. Variety opined that Weisz and her co-star Amy Poehler "get fewer choice moments than they deserve." Constantine followed, based on the comic book Hellblazer and starring Keanu Reeves. Film Threat called her portrayal "effective at projecting scepticism and, eventually, dawning horror".

  In 2005, Fernando Meirelles directed her in The Constant Gardener. The film adapts a John le Carré thriller set in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya. Weisz played Tessa Quayle, an activist married to a British embassy official. The role won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also took the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

  The Guardian noted that the film "established her in the front rank of British actors". The BBC wrote: "Weisz is exceptional: film star charisma coupled with raw emotion in a performance to fall in love with". In 2006 she received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year.

  Darren Aronofsky's romantic drama The Fountain, in 2006, had her playing Queen Isabel. The San Francisco Chronicle found that portrayal "less convincing" than her other roles. That year she also voiced Saphira the dragon in the fantasy film Eragon. Later films included Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights in 2007 and Definitely, Maybe in 2008. She also appeared in Rian Johnson's caper film The Brothers Bloom, for which she learned karate.

  In 2009, Weisz took the lead role of Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora, a historical drama and Spanish production directed by Alejandro Amenábar. The New York Times called her portrayal "adept" and noted that she imparted "a sympathetic presence".

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• 6. Independent Turn

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  At the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, the premiere of The Whistleblower was so intense that a woman in the audience fainted. The film tells the true story of human trafficking by employees of the contractor DynCorp. Viewers were shaken by its depiction of how the kidnappers treated their victims. Variety wrote "Weisz's performance holds the viewer every step of the way." That same year she guest-starred in The Simpsons, in the 22nd season episode "How Munched is That Birdie in the Window?"

  Her 2011 roles included an adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea, Fernando Meirelles' drama 360, and the BBC espionage thriller Page Eight. In 2012 she filmed scenes for Terrence Malick's romantic drama To the Wonder, but they were cut. She starred that year in the action thriller The Bourne Legacy, based on Robert Ludlum's books. In 2013 she played Evanora in the fantasy film Oz the Great and Powerful.

  The Lobster, a science fiction film from 2015, won the Cannes Jury Prize, and Weisz also appeared in the drama Youth that year. In 2016 came The Light Between Oceans, along with Denial, in which she portrayed the Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt. Mick Jackson directed Denial, and it was based on Lipstadt's book. Weisz starred in My Cousin Rachel in 2017, adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel. In 2018 she co-starred in The Mercy, James Marsh's biographical film about the sailor Donald Crowhurst.

  LC6 Productions, Weisz's own production company, released its first feature film, Disobedience, in 2017. It starred Weisz and Rachel McAdams. Weisz grew up three London Underground stops away from the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where the film is set. Raised within Judaism, she never fully connected to her ancestral religion. She says she was "really disobedient" herself and has never felt she fits in anywhere.

  In The Favourite, in 2018, Weisz played the cutthroat advisor Lady Sarah Churchill. The role won her the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She was also nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Golden Globe Award and the Critics' Choice Award. It brought her a second Academy Award nomination.

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• 7. Private Life

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  Backstage at London's Almeida Theatre, where she was starring in The Shape of Things, Weisz met the filmmaker and producer Darren Aronofsky. They began dating in 2001. She moved to New York City with him the following year, and they were engaged in 2005. Their son was born in May 2006 in New York City. The couple lived in the East Village in Manhattan, and the mohel Philip Sherman performed their son's brit milah.

  In November 2010, Weisz and Aronofsky announced that they had been apart for months. They remained close friends and committed to raising their son together in New York.

  Daniel Craig had been a friend of Weisz for many years, and the two worked together on the 2011 film Dream House. They began dating in December 2010. They married on the 22nd of June 2011 in a private New York ceremony with four guests, including Weisz's son and Craig's daughter. On the 1st of September 2018 it was reported that they had their first child together, a daughter, completing their family of five.

  Vogue is among the magazines that have put Weisz on their covers. She served as a muse to the fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez, and L'Oréal named her its global ambassador in 2010. In 2011, the year of her wedding, she became a naturalised American citizen. She is a British citizen by birth.

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• 8. Marvel and Beyond

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  In April 2019, Weisz entered talks to join Scarlett Johansson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Widow. By July of that year she was announced in the role of Melina Vostokoff. The film was released on the 9th of July 2021.

  Dead Ringers, a Prime Video miniseries remake, arrived in 2023. Weisz starred as twin obstetricians and also served as an executive producer. The work earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.

  Vladimir, a 2026 Netflix limited series, adapts Julia May Jonas's novel. Weisz plays the lead and is again an executive producer. It runs to eight episodes. Tomas Alfredson's upcoming drama Séance on a Wet Afternoon has also cast her, opposite Matthew Macfadyen and Joe Alwyn.

  The next entry in the franchise that made her famous is already announced. Weisz is set to reprise her role as Evelyn O'Connell in the fourth Mummy film, reuniting with Brendan Fraser and John Hannah. Radio Silence Productions is developing the film, which is scheduled for release in 2028.

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