World Entertainment: Rachel Weisz

Rachel Weisz

Rachel Hannah Weisz (playborn 7 March 1970) is an English film and theatre actress and fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, 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 miniseries The Scarlet and the Black, and the television movie Advocates II. She made her film debut in the 1994 film Death Machine, but her breakthrough role came in the 1996 movie 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 Noel 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 began dating American filmmaker and producer Darren Aronofsky in the summer of 2001. They met backstage at London's Almeida Theatre, where she was starring in The Shape of Things. Weisz moved to New York City with Aronofsky the following year; in 2005, they were engaged.Their son, Henry Chance, was born on 31 May 2006 in New York City.The couple resided in the East Village in Manhattan. In November 2010, Weisz and Aronofsky announced that they had been apart for months, but remain close friends and are committed to raising their son together in New York.Weisz is represented by Creative Artists Agency. In 2001 she was involved in a traffic accident, while traveling in a cab that was hit by a truck, Weisz was unharmed. On 7 July 2007, she presented at the American leg of Live Earth, along with Alec Baldwin and Kevin Bacon.During her career she has been featured on the covers of magazines such as Vogue and Esquire. She serves as a muse to fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez,and was named L’Oréal'sglobal ambassador in 2010.Weisz has admitted being an avid Elvis Presley fan, and visited Graceland mansion in 2001.