Join us for a Career Retrospective with Rachel Weisz, currently starring in THE FAVOURITE.
Moderated by Mara Webster, SAG AFTRA Foundation Program Manager
GUEST BIO
Academy Award-winning actress Rachel Weisz, who is known for portraying women of incredible spirit and intelligence, continues to seek out challenging projects and roles both on screen and on stage and as a producer.
Weisz currently stars in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, alongside Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Nicholas Hoult. The film premiered to rave reviews at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and is an acerbic tale of royal intrigue, passion, envy and betrayal in the court of Queen Anne in early 18th century England. At the center of the story is the Queen (Colman), whose relationship with her confidante, adviser and clandestine lover Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Weisz) is turned upside down by the arrival of the Duchess’s younger cousin Abigail (Stone). Fox Searchlight released the film November 23, 2018 in the US and in the UK in January 2019. Since the film’s release, Weisz has received an Academy Award nomination as well as Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations in the category of Best Actress in a Supporting Role as well as praise from dozens of local film critics societies.
She recently produced and starred in Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience alongside Rachel McAdams and Alessandro Nivola. The film, which is based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival to rave reviews and was released by Bleecker Street in April 2018. Disobedience is the story of forbidden love set in a closed Orthodox Jewish community in North London to which Ronit (Weisz), a photographer living in New York returns to confront her troubled past after the sudden death of her father, a well respected rabbi.
In 2005 Weisz earned a Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for her performance in Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardner. In 2012 she received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea. Her performance also earned her Best Actress awards from The New York Film Critics Circle, and the Toronto Film Critics Association.
Weisz’s diverse film work includes The Mercy, My Cousin Rachel, Denial, Complete Unknown, The Light Between the Oceans, Youth, The Lobster, Agora, The Brothers Bloom, My Blueberry Nights, The Lovely Bones, Definitely Maybe, The Whistleblower, The Bourne Legacy, Oz: The Great and Powerful, The Shape of Things, The Fountain, Runaway Jury, About a Boy, Enemy at the Gates, Constantine, Stealing Beauty, The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. She executive produced The Radiator, the directorial debut of Tom Browne.
In 2016, Weisz starred in the off-Broadway production of The Public Theater’s “Plenty." In 2013, she starred on Broadway in Mike Nichols' "Betrayal.” In 2010, Weisz won the Laurence Olivier Award in the category of "Best Actress" for her performance as Blanche DuBois in the West End revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."
