Rachel Weisz became an actress to find out more about people. The Agora star – who studied English at the prestigious Cambridge University – admits one of her favourite things about her profession is the research she carries out into her characters. She said: “I liked acting because I love to ask people questions. “I like knowing about people and trying to imagine myself in other people’s shoes and other people’s skins. I do that all the time.” Rachel, 40, also spoke about her marriage to The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky – with who she has three-year-old son Henry – insisting the 41-year-old filmmaker is nothing like people expect from the subject matter of his movies. She explained: “Seeing his films, you’d think he is this weird, dark, intense guy. But I don’t live with a dark person. He’s really good at life, very good at going to the park and having a good time. “He’s also very organised. He doesn’t live in chaos. His parents are teachers and they have an easy sense of order and discipline.”

Source: Contactmusic

Rachel Weisz gets in some quality bonding time with her absolutely adorable son Henry in Toronto, Canada on Saturday (April 24). She is in town with Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts to shoot their new movie Dream House. You can see Rachel pointing out photographers in the distance to Henry! Source: JustJared

Katie Holmes will portray Jackie Kennedy in a new mini-series. The Batman Begins actress will play the legendary First Lady in the eight-hour series The Kennedys on The History Channel. Greg Kinnear will star as President John F. Kennedy in the biographical dramatisation – which focuses on the years of his premiership between 1961 and his assassination in Texas in 1963 – and will be executively produced by Joel Surnow. British star Tom Wilkinson will play family patriarch Joe Kennedy Sr. in the programmes, which are the first time the channel has forayed into making a scripted production. The Kennedy dynasty has proved a popular subject for films recently, with Jeanne Tripplehorn playing Jackie in 2009 TV movie Grey Gardens and Brit actress Rachel Weisz rumoured to be taking the role of the former First Lady in an upcoming big-screen biopic.

Source: Contactmusic

Rachel Weisz has admitted she knew nothing about Greek scholar Hypatia, whom she portrays in Agora. The Mummy star told the Daily Mirror: “I must confess I’d never heard of Hypatia – I now know that she was heroine for the romantic poets in the 18th century, but I didn’t know anything about her.” But she said yes to the part because it “seemed too unusual, unique, wonderful and bold to say no to”. Rachel – who has three-year-old son Henry with her fiance, Oscar-winning director Darren Aronofsky – brought the family to Malta as she filmed Agora. “Henry wasn’t even in pre-school at that point, so he came with me,” she continued. “We rented a little apartment overlooking the sea and Darren worked on his film The Wrestler. We were a family and we went to work every morning. He went off to edit Mickey Rourke and I went off to battle religious intolerance in the fourth century.” She added: “Then we had dinner and put Henry to bed. It was kind of bonkers – but how dreamy!”

Source: The Press Association

Rachel Weisz didn’t know the back story to Agora. The British actress plays the lead character Hypatia in the film and admits the true-life tale of the female philosophy professor in 4th Century Egypt was not she was familiar with. She said: “The thing I couldn’t believe is that this is a true story. Everything that happens in the film is true – apart from her having the slave and the slave being in love with her, that’s a little Hollywood invention – but the fact that no has made a film about her is pretty extraordinary. “I’d never heard of her even. And she’s a remarkable, remarkable woman.” The 40-year-old star also thinks many people still continue to prejudice her for not being the kind of woman who wanted to settle down and have children. She told BBC News: “I think no would look at Leonardo Da Vinci and say, ‘Oh isn’t it sad that he didn’t have kids or a wife’ Everyone understands that he is busy. But when it comes to a woman – and I was the same I thought, ‘Ah, wouldn’t it be nice if she could be a mum and have a partner and get married’ – but I realised if it was man no one would really think that.”

Source: Contactmusic

Rachel Weisz will star as Jackie Kennedy in a biopic about the late first lady, reports Entertainment Weekly. Weisz’s partner Darren Aronofsky is directing the movie, titled Jackie, which centres on the four days between President Kennedy’s assassination and his burial in November 1963. Noah Oppenheim wrote the script, which is being pitched to the major Hollywood studios with Aronofsky, Weisz and producer Scott Franklin as part of the deal. Weisz previously worked with Aronofsky on science fiction love story The Fountain. Her latest film Agora opens in the UK on April 23.

Source: Digital Spy