| BIOGRAPHY
A British actress whose name and dark looks effortlessly conjure
up associations with Eastern European exoticism, Rachel Weisz
first earned the attention of an international audience with her
role as the spoiled daughter of a sculptor in Bernardo Bertolucci's
Stealing Beauty (1996). The daughter of a Jewish-Hungarian inventor
and an Austrian psychoanalyst (both sides of the family fled Fascist
Europe during the '30s), Weisz was born in London on March 3,
1971. Much of her adolescence was spent modeling, and after attending
Cambridge to study English, she broke into acting with a role
in Sean Mathias' West End revival of Noel Coward's Design for
Living.
Weisz's performance in the play won her the Critics' Circle Best
Newcomer award, and she subsequently took advantage of this recognition
with a starring role in the BBC's TV adaptation of Scarlet &
Black (1993), and then in 1996 with her aforementioned part in
Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty. Although most attention was paid
to Liv Tyler in her role as the film's protagonist, Weisz managed
to garner notice of her own, and this recognition was furthered
by her top billing opposite Keanu Reeves in Chain Reaction that
same year. Unfortunately, the big-budget thriller was an unmitigated
turkey; Weisz followed it with leads in smaller films such as
The Land Girls (1997), a WWII drama that cast her as a young socialite
sent to work on a farm; and Going All the Way (1997), a post-war
coming-of-age drama starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Davies that
saw Weisz play Wasp, Affleck's Jewish girlfriend.
After returning to Britain to star as a hairdresser in the noirish
drama I Want You (1998), Weisz reappeared on the Hollywood radar
as Brendan Fraser's damsel in distress in the 1999 summer blockbuster
The Mummy. That same year, she played yet another love interest,
that of a womanizing Ralph Fiennes in Sunshine, István
Szabó's epic drama about three generations of a family
of Hungarian Jews. Weisz' subsequent turn in the period drama
Enemy at the Gates (2000) saw her play the inamorata of yet another
Fiennes brother, Joseph. As a Russian-American sniper caught between
the affections of a Russian party official (Fiennes) and a legendary
sniper (Jude Law), the actress again returned to the early part
of the 20th century (this time the Battle of Stalingrad) and to
the deep end of the Fiennes family gene pool.
Dutifully returning for The Mummy Returns a few short months
later, that same year found the starlet gaining positive notice
for her role in director Neil LaBute's biting stage drama The
Shape of Things. Cast as a young art student whose latest "piece"
is a strikingly original form of sculpture, Weisz's character
would attempt to transform her boyfriend from schlub to stud to
surprising effect. When the play was adapted to film in 2001,
the team stuck together with Weisz and co-star Paul Rudd stepping
before LaBute's all-seeing lens. For her role in the 2003 crime
drama Confidence, Weisz would join a band of talented con artists
in a daring bid to take a banker with ties to organized crime
for all he's worth. Though the film may not have struck box-office
gold, it did prove something of a sleeper and drew generally favorable
reviews from critics. Confidence would be one of two films that
found Weisz cast alongside screen legend Dustin Hoffman in 2003,
the other being the courtroom thriller Runaway Jury. If her last
few years had been slightly weighed down in drama, audiences could
be assured that things would lighten up considerably when Weisz
joined the cast of the Barry Levinson comedy Envy (2004).
|
FILMOGRAPHY
• Constantine (2005)
• Envy (2004)
• Confidence (2003)
• Runaway Jury (2003)
• The Shape of Things (2003)
• About a Boy (2002)
• The Mummy Collection (2002)
• Beautiful Creatures (2001)
• Enemy at the Gates (2001)
• The Mummy Returns (2001)
• Sunshine (2000)
• This is Not an Exit (2000)
• The Mummy (1999)
• I Want You (1998)
• The Land Girls (1998)
• The Land Girls (1998)
• Going All the Way (1997)
• Swept From the Sea (1997)
• Chain Reaction (1996)
• Stealing Beauty (1996) |
