Rachel Hannah Weisz born 7 March 1970 is an English film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues. The group was awarded the Student Drama Award for the improvised piece Slight Possession during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by The Guardian.
Weisz started working in television, appearing in Inspector Morse, the British mini-series Scarlet and Black, and the television film Advocates II. She made her film début in the 1994 film Death Machine, but her breakthrough role came in the 1996 film Chain Reaction, leading to a high-profile role as Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell in the films The Mummy, in 1999, and The Mummy Returns in 2001. Other notable films featuring Weisz are Enemy at the Gates, About a Boy, Constantine, The Fountain and The Constant Gardener, for which she received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors' Guild award for her supporting role as Tessa Quayle.Weisz also works in theatre. Her stage breakthrough was the 1994 revival of Noël Coward's play Design for Living, which earned her the London Critics Circle Award for the most promising newcomer. Weisz's performances also include the 1999 Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams" Suddenly Last Summer, and their 2009 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. Her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the latter play earned her the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2009.
Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a teacher turned psychotherapist from Austria. Her father, George Weisz, was an inventor from Hungary. Her parents moved to England during the Holocaust and Second World War. Her father is Jewish and her mother has Jewish, "Catholic Viennese", and Italian ancestry. Weisz' maternal grandfather, Alexander Teich, was a secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students; whilst one of Weisz' maternal great-grandmothers was Italian. She has a sister, Minnie, who is a photographer and curator.
Weisz started working in television, appearing in Inspector Morse, the British mini-series Scarlet and Black, and the television film Advocates II. She made her film début in the 1994 film Death Machine, but her breakthrough role came in the 1996 film Chain Reaction, leading to a high-profile role as Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell in the films The Mummy, in 1999, and The Mummy Returns in 2001. Other notable films featuring Weisz are Enemy at the Gates, About a Boy, Constantine, The Fountain and The Constant Gardener, for which she received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors' Guild award for her supporting role as Tessa Quayle.Weisz also works in theatre. Her stage breakthrough was the 1994 revival of Noël Coward's play Design for Living, which earned her the London Critics Circle Award for the most promising newcomer. Weisz's performances also include the 1999 Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams" Suddenly Last Summer, and their 2009 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. Her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the latter play earned her the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2009.
Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a teacher turned psychotherapist from Austria. Her father, George Weisz, was an inventor from Hungary. Her parents moved to England during the Holocaust and Second World War. Her father is Jewish and her mother has Jewish, "Catholic Viennese", and Italian ancestry. Weisz' maternal grandfather, Alexander Teich, was a secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students; whilst one of Weisz' maternal great-grandmothers was Italian. She has a sister, Minnie, who is a photographer and curator.
Weisz's parents valued the arts, and encouraged her and her sister to form opinions of their own by introducing them to family debates. Her parents later divorced. Weisz left North London Collegiate School and attended Benenden School for one year completing A-levels at St Paul's Girls School. Weisz claimed that she was a bad student until an English Literature teacher inspired her at the age of sixteen.Weisz started modelling when she was fourteen. In 1984, she gained public attention when she turned down an offer to star in King David, along with Richard Gere.After school, she 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. It won a Guardian Student Drama Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for an improvised piece called Slight Possession, directed by David Farr. The group existed until 1993.
Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Weisz
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