Rachel Weisz Biography

Childhood & Early Life

Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on March 7, 1970 in Westminster, London to parents George Weisz, a mechanical engineer, and Edith Ruth, a psychotherapist. Her father is Jewish, while her mother converted to Judaism before getting married. Her parents left for the United Kingdom during 1938 to escape the Nazis before the Second World War. Her father came from Hungary, while her mother is Austrian. She has one sibling, a sister named Minnie Weisz who is a photographic artist.

Rachel initially attended North London Collegiate School and later went on to attend Benenden School for a year. She then attended St Paul’s Girls School, completing her schooling with A-levels. She also studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and graduated with second class honors in Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Throughout her years as a student in Cambridge, Rachel appeared in several student productions and co-founded a drama group for students called ‘Cambridge Talking Tongues’. The group went on to win Guardian Student Drama Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1991. They had performed an improvised piece called Slight Possession. The group existed only a couple of years later after that.

Career

Rachel started her career with modeling at the age of 14. She first appeared on television in the film ‘Advocates II’ in 1992. She later went on to appear in episodes of ‘Inspector Morse’ and BBC’s ‘Scarlet and Black’. In 1994, she made her film debut by appearing in ‘Death Machine’. Her first major movie role was in 1996’s ‘Chain Reaction’, in which she starred alongside Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman. After this, she gained popularity and landed major roles in films including ‘Swept from the Sea’, ‘I want You’, ‘My Summer with Des’, and others. She made headlines after rejecting an offer to work with Richard Gere in ‘King David’. Rachel made a breakthrough with her role as Evelyn Carnahan, an English Egyptologist in ‘The Mummy’ opposite Brendan Fraser. The film opened to major success at the box office but did not impress the critics. In 2003, she played Marlee in the film adaptation of John Grisham’s legal thriller novel ‘The Runaway Jury’, in which she starred with Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, and John Cusack. She also appeared in Constantine along with Keanu Reeves in 2005. In 2005, she appeared in Fernando Meirelles’ ‘The Constant Gardener’, playing the role of an activist. The film was an adaptation of John le Carre’s thriller. The film received wide critical acclaim and Rachel was praised for her performance. She also won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award for the same. She also lent her voice to Saphira the dragon in the 2006 fantasy film Eragon. In 2010, she appeared in ‘The Whistleblower’ and received appreciation for her powerful performance. The film was based on a true story of human trafficking. She also starred in 2012 action thriller film ‘The Bourne Legacy’ based on Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series of books. She recently appeared in the 2016 film, ‘The Light Between Oceans’ alongside Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender.

Major Works

She co-founded a theatre company ‘Cambridge Talking Tongues’. She went on to win several awards for it and wrote plays and acted in them. She is the patron of ‘X Appeal’, the official charity of the Royal College of Radiologists.

Awards & Achievements

In 1999, for her performance in ‘The Mummy’ opposite Brendan Fraser, Rachel received nominations as the Best Actress in the Saturn Awards and the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. In the same year, she got nominated as the Best Supporting Actress for the Genie Awards for her role in Sunshine. In 2001, she was nominated for the Empire Awards owing to her performance in ‘The Mummy Returns’ as the Best British Actress. Her performance in ‘The Constant Gardener’ helped her receive numerous accolades. During 2005 and 2006, she was nominated for several awards including Critic’s Choice Movie Award and BAFTA Award as the best supporting actress. She won the British Independent Film Award, Golden Globe Award, The Academy Award, Screen Actor Guild Award, London Critics’ Circle Film Award, and many more all for ‘The Constant Gardener’. In 2012, she received nominations for ‘The Whistleblower’, for Genie Awards and Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a leading role and Best Actress in a Canadian Film respectively. In the same year, she won the New York Film Critics’ Circle Award in the Best Actress category for her performance in The Deep Blue Sea. For her film,‘Youth’, she was nominated as the Best Actress for the European Film Awards in 2015.

Personal Life & Legacy

In 2001, Rachel met Darren Aronofsky, an American filmmaker and producer at Almeida Theatre in London, when she was playing a role in ‘The Shape of Things’. She began dating the same year and a year later Rachel moved to New York with Darren. The couple got engaged in 2005. In 2006, Rachel gave birth to their son Henry Chance Aronofsky in New York City. In 2010, the couple announced that they had been estranged for months but continue to remain friends and bring up their son together in New York. In December 2010, Rachel began dating James Bond actor Daniel Craig. They got married on June 22, 2011, in a private ceremony in New York. The guest list included only four guests including Rachel’s son Henry and Daniel Craig’s daughter Ella Craig. She became an American citizen in 2011.

Trivia

Her maternal grandfather Alexander Teich was the secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students.