Rachel Weisz

Actor

Rachel Weisz is the raven-haired English beauty who won an Oscar as best supporting actress for the 2005 film The Constant Gardener. Weisz graduated from Cambridge University with accolades for her theatrical skills, then began her professional career in British television. In the early 1990s she appeared on stage and in small movie roles until her early breakthrough appearance in 1996's Stealing Beauty (with Liv Tyler). She became a star as Brendan Fraser's damsel-in-distress in the adventure The Mummy (1999) and as Hugh Grant's love interest in About a Boy (2002, based on the novel by Nick Hornby). Since then Weisz has appeared in big Hollywood productions and small arthouse dramas, including Chain Reaction (1996, with Keanu Reeves), The Land Girls (1998), Enemy at the Gates (2001, co-starring Jude Law), Confidence (2003, with Dustin Hoffman) and Runaway Jury (2003, with John Cusack). In The Constant Gardener she played an ill-fated activist in Africa, co-starring with former Oscar-winner Ralph Fiennes.

Extra credit: Weisz's first child, a son, was born on 31 May 2006. The father was Darren Aronofsky, the director of the films Pi (1999) and Requiem for a Dream (2000).