Rachel Weisz

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Brought up in the wealthy London suburb of Hampstead, Rachel Weisz (pronounced Vice, in case you were wondering), was born to a Austrian psychoanalyst mum and Hungarian inventor dad.

Rachel had a stint as a model at 14, and discovered an interest in acting at Cambridge University, from which she graduated with a 2:1 in English. While there, she formed a theatre group called Talking Tongues, which won the Guardian Award at the Edinburgh Festival. She got her first big break on the West End stage in Noel Coward's Design For Living and, after starring in English TV programmes and two small movies, Stealing Beauty and Chain Reaction, Hollywood came calling.

She went on to star in big box-office films like The Mummy, Enemy at the Gates and Constantine, but it was the 2005 hit The Constant Gardener that garnered her real critical acclaim, not to mention an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Now a bonafide Hollywood A-lister, Rachel lives in Manhattan with her director fiancé Darren Aronovsky and their son Henry Chance, who was born in 2006. Her former boyfriends include English actor Neil Morrisey and Kate Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes.

In 2008, Rachel starred in the comedy Definitely, Maybe, and her latest project sees her take a star turn in an adaptation of Alice Sebold's moving novel, The Lovely Bones.

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