The last time Empire encountered Rachel Weisz was in an ersatz 19th century fisherman's cottage on a
                               rain-soaked patch of the Cornish coast. She was there to fill the lead role in next month's Amy Foster, Beeban
                               Kidron's adaptation of the Conrad short story of the same name. Empire was there (when it was known as Swept
                               From The Sea) to ruin a pair of Reeboks in the mud. "I'm sorry," she says honestly, when reminded of the
                               occasion. "I've just drawn the most enormous blank." Oh. But thankfully, the young actress is not nearly so
                               absent-minded when it comes to the auspicious events that have marked her career so far. Born in London,
                               where she still lives, Weisz became a professional actress after studying English at Cambridge. Plans to attend
                               stage school were shelved when she resolved that, at 22, she was too old to "carry on being taught stuff". A
                               decision further prompted by the wealth of experience already gleaned from Talking Tongues, the theatre group
                               she formed while still at university. "We did things at the Edinburgh Festival," she explains. "We were described
                               as 'The Giants Of The Fringe' by The Scotsman or something, which was pretty funny because it was just two
                               small girls performing, a producer and a director. It was like a little family." Culled from improvisations, their
                               performances were intense sets of what Weisz terms "fraught naturalism". "I know," she blushes, "it sounds too
                               pretentious to mention. In one, called Slight Possessions, we played two lovers. It was about how people try to
                               control each other in a relationship. We were in these little floral dresses with bare feet, looking very vulnerable
                               and sweet. And we just proceeded to hurl each other round the stage. It was very violent, very funny and, I have
                               to say, superb." A subsequent show at the National Theatre Studio brought her to the attention of director Sean
                               Mathias who cast her in the West End revival of Noel Coward's Design For Living, for which she won the
                               prestigious London Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Newcomer. That in turn led to her fleeting but
                               memorable screen debut as the sexually voracious foil to Liv Tyler's vacillating virgin in Bertolucci's Stealing
                               Beauty. She describes the veteran Italian auteur as "very poetic, very magnificent, a bit of a maverick," and
                               claims she would have done "almost anything" for the chance to work with him. Given that it was her first movie,
                               though, did she have any qualms about portraying such a . . . "Such a what? Such a tremendous bitch?" No,
                               such a tremendous slag. Hmmm," she muses. "I didn't really think,'Is this a good idea?' It was just the elation
                               of getting the part. I felt quite clumsy, actually," she says of the transition from stage to screen acting. "They
                               are very different crafts and I think I've got a lot to learn. It's not like drawing a picture where you can rub bits
                               out and start again." Unfortunately, Weisz's follow-up to Stealing Beauty, Andrew Davis' acrid sci-fi stinkbomb
                               Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves, was anything but a cushy date. "Looking back on it, I think it's kind of
                               hilarious," she giggles. "This English person lost in the wrong genre running around going, 'Which way?' 'I
                               dunno. Run!' Obviously I was like (whispers in awe) 'I can't fucking believe this, Keanu Reeves!' It was beyond
                               belief, this huge $60 million movie with huge megastars and egos and suits. But it was so arduous to make I
                               can tell you." Tell us, tell us. "First of all, Andy Davis is a lunatic. I adore him and respect him, but he is a total
                               lunatic. Sometimes we'd work 18 hours a day in the snow. He does a lot of takes and when there's action stuff
                               going on, you're doing everything 200 times. You get one minute of film and you've spent three days getting it.
                               It was unspeakably difficult and gruelling, mentally as well as physically. "I was very disappointed," she admits.
                               "But I was most disappointed for Andy because I have never seen a human being put so much of themselves
                               into a project. And he's a lovely, lovely man so I felt particularly sorry for him. " With that under her belt, Weisz
                               is obviously delighted to be starring in Amy Foster, a film she became involved in while doing re-shoots for
                               Chain Reaction. "I read the script and it was without doubt the best I'd ever read. It's the most beautifully
                               written script. I read it and cried for a whole day. I just knew exactly who Amy Foster was," she says of the
                               tragic, reclusive heroine who falls in love with a shipwrecked Ukrainian emigrant and is shunned by the local
                               community. "I knew her in my mind. Making the movie was a tremendous experience." Casting her alongside
                               such heavyweights as Sir Ian McKellen, Kathy Bates, Joss Ackland and Tom Bell, Kidron also appears to have
                               considerable respect for Weisz, describing her as having "a timeless and authentic beauty" and compares her to
                               30s movie goddess Merle Oberon. "There's a lot of contemporary actresses I admire," says Weisz, "but there's
                               practically no one who has made a colour movie whose career I'd want. My favourites are Katharine Hepburn,
                               Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor - Hepburn's flair for comedy; Davis' self-dramatising, Liz Taylor's burning
                               sensuality. They are what I aspire to. I don't feel very modern, not at all . . .

                               © Empire - May 1998,
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