Rachel Weisz’s two favourite movie directors: “Delicious and sublime”
Since her early 1990s debut, Rachel Weisz has enjoyed a varied career, appearing in everything from Hollywood hits like The Mummy and Black Widow to considerably more interesting titles like Yorgos Lanthimos’ bizarre historical comedy The Favourite and the lesbian romantic drama Disobedience.
In 2005, she won an Oscar for her role in The Constant Gardener, proving herself to be one of the most successful actors of her generation, just as able to take on impressive indie roles as mainstream ones. Weisz has even shown herself to be extremely at ease on stage, and she has earned significant acclaim for roles in the likes of A Streetcar Named Desire and The Shape of Things.
They say that variety is the spice of life, and Weisz has certainly adopted this thinking when it comes to her acting choices, reluctant to rule out any one genre or kind of film, whether that be a blockbuster or a low-budget project. When it comes to watching movies, however, it seems as though the actor is loyal to two filmmakers that she considers the cream of the crop.
Revealing her favourite movies to Rotten Tomatoes, alongside her choice of Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, Weisz picked out two movies from two directors, proving that she certainly has her favourites, both of whom were vital figures of the New Hollywood era. The first is Peter Bogdanovich, specifically for his films What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon.
Discussing her love of the former, she said, “I would say What’s Up, Doc? with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, by Peter Bogdanovich. It’s one of the best screwball comedies I’ve ever seen. Barbra Streisand is beyond beautiful, and seductive, and funny, and she’s playing Bugs Bunny, basically. And it has the best car chase ever.” Released in 1972, the film pays homage to the classic screwball genre with a bag mix-up that results in lots of great scrapes, and of course, a fantastic love story.
The tender Paper Moon came the following year, and Weisz couldn’t leave it off her favourites list, either. “It’s really hard for me not to put Paper Moon on there, which is also Bogdanovich and Ryan O’Neal, and Tatum O’Neal, his daughter,” she said. “It’s one of the great stories about criminals who you love. Tonally, it’s just outrageously delicious and sublime.”
It’s hard to dislike Paper Moon, with its flawless performances (Tatum even won an Oscar for her role at the age of ten) and brilliant chemistry between the real-life father and daughter, who play characters who may or may not be related. Left in the care of conman Moses, whom she meets at her mother’s funeral, the young Addie accompanies him on his scamming missions as they travel towards her aunt’s house, and they soon prove to be an unlikely duo.
Weisz is also a huge fan of Hal Ashby, whose ability to blend dark comedy and drama truly marked him out as one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation. Picking out the dazzlingly dark yet hopeful Harold and Maude, the actor said, “I think it’s definitely one of the most unusual love stories that I’ve seen.”
She added, “The comedy is delicious. The performance of Ruth Gordon – you know, she’s a woman in her 80s acting like a 16-year-old – is one of the most extraordinary performances I’ve ever seen. I believe it got very bad reviews when it came out, almost unanimously, but is, I think, probably one of the great comedies ever made.”
Her other favourite Ashby movie is Being There, featuring Peter Sellers, an unusual satire about a man who experiences the real world for the first time after spending most of his life as a gardener, never going anywhere outside the confines of the garden and learning everything he thinks he needs to know from television. “I think it’s the funniest performance ever, but it’s 99% drama, 1% comedy. It’s the tiniest dose of funny, because he’s so serious,” Weisz concluded.
