Rachel Weisz Biography

Fast Facts

• Parents are from Eastern Europe; father is a Hungarian-born inventor; mother is an Austrian-born psychotherapist
• Turned down a role in King David, starring Richard Gere, when she was 14
• While at Cambridge, formed an avant-garde acting troupe called Talking Tongues
• Received the London Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 1994 for Design for Living
• Was not in the third installment of The Mummy series because she had both scheduling difficulties and a newborn baby
• Won Britain's 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Blanche DuBois in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire
• Signed on to be a L'Oréal Paris spokesperson on October 2010
• Says doing an American accent is no longer difficult for her
• Keeps her Oscar in her bathroom
• Describes being an actor as a way of fulfilling her childhood dream of wanting to be a detective because she gets to "snoop into other people's lives
• " Has been called the muse of fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez