THE EMPIRE INTERVIEW
“Rachel Weisz, Rachel Weisz, every morning you greet me/small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me.” [Sung to the tune of Do-re-mi]
Whether impressing in VFX adventures like the mummy, or small-scale true-life dramas like this month’s the mercy, rachel Weisz has always Followed her own path. But that doesn’t mean she’s got a map, as empire contributing editor dan Jolin Finds out
When Rachel Weisz took the female lead in 1999’s The Mummy, her big Hollywood breakthrough, she boldly played it more as comic relief than romantic interest. Yet she’s hardly done comedy (or big action films) since. And now, after years of avoiding the ‘Doting Mum’ or ‘Supportive Wife’, we find her in James Marsh’s true-life drama The Mercy playing Clare Crowhurst, a devoted mother of four known for being the tragically supportive spouse of Donald (played by Colin Firth), the amateur yachtsman who disastrously attempted a roundthe-world sailing race in 1968 and has never been seen since. When I admit to Weisz I’ve been struggling to find a pattern to her film choices, she laughs. “Do let me know if you do,” she says. “I’d love to make sense of my life.”
We’re talking in a loft studio in Midtown Manhattan, not too far from the one-time Londoner’s home in the city’s Nomad neighbourhood, while she has her face prodded and hair tugged in preparation for Empire’s rooftop photo-shoot. Usually actors prefer to keep journalists at a respectful distance during all the fuss and flurry of the styling process. But Weisz laughs off my clumsily expressed concern for her “mindspace” and insists we dive straight into a long, lively conversation that continues even during her crosstown car journey home, as she scoffs a huge boiled egg and some avocado-mushed toast.
She apologises for talking with her mouth full, but is even more sorry, she says, for finding it so hard to talk about her work. She’s happier discussing other people’s movies, ’70s comedy (she’s just re-watched the first episode of Are You
Being Served? with her son) or, even better, music (the Velvet Underground’s her favourite band, she used to like heavy metal, she rates Stormzy and thinks The Cure’s Robert Smith is “a poet”). As for acting? “You can’t hold it in your hands,” she says. “It is a mystery to me. I don’t know how to quantify it, or explain it. If I started, it would be twaddle.” In this sense, she’s not the easiest of interviewees — gently but firmly resisting analysis, while admitting she’s not one for soundbites. But still, she’s engaging company: playful, forthright, questioning back and giving every response a lot of thought, even if she can’t always give me an answer.