»WEISZ MINCES WORDS, BUT MAINTAINS MORALS


By Anna Kaufman

Thursday, May 8, 2003

"Nice shoes," are the first words out of Rachel Weisz's mouth as our interview commences. If the immaculately dressed Weisz is trying to butter me up by complimenting my $30 Nine West knockoffs, well, then consider this reporter officially buttered.

But Weisz seems genuine and surprisingly down-to-earth for an actress who has appeared in such blockbuster smashes as "The Mummy" and "The Mummy 2." When Weisz, who is English, is complimented on her very convincing American accent, she doesn't just bask in the praise, but asks, "It didn't sound too regional, did it?"

Not at all. In fact, Weisz's ability to do a credible American accent is a large part of what won her the role in the theater version of Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things."

"(LaBute) was in England (filming 'Possession'), and he was going to import an all-American cast from New York. I don't think he had an English actress in mind for the role," Weisz recalls. "I persuaded him with my passion, I think. My passion for the piece." She pauses and thinks over what she just said. "It makes it sound like I slept with him or something."

Weisz made no visits to the famed "casting couch," but she did have to go back for a special reading to show off that not-too-regional American accent. After that, the part of manipulative art student Evelyn was hers, and when LaBute decided he wanted to make "The Shape of Things" into a movie, Weisz got something more: her first producing job.

"Neil asked me, 'Do you want to be a producer?' and I said, 'Absolutely!'" Weisz says. "And so I went with him and tried to get some money for the movie. We had a showcase for (it), you know, 'Come and see this play - these are the actors and this is the writing - and see if you want to make it into a movie.' I helped him kind of get the money for it.

"It was interesting to see all the detail that goes into making a movie," Weisz says of the new perspective gained from working behind the camera. However, her work producing "The Shape of Things" was not really Weisz's first exposure to more behind-the-scenes type efforts.

"At university I started a theater company," Weisz says. "Myself and a girlfriend of mine, and my best friend was the producer and another girl was the director and it was the four of us and we were like a little family. We wrote out own plays and we travelled to theater festivals and we were very enterprising. It was kind of like theater meets performance art, very heightened, broad naturalism, and it was very physically violent and experimental and very, very cool�some of the coolest work I've ever done."

Weisz would like to see more experimental material work its way into the Hollywood mainstream.

"What would be interesting would be to make a $70 million subversive movie with great special effects that all the kids want to go see and they see something a bit different," Weisz says. "But nobody is going to give you $70 million to do a movie like ('The Shape of Things'). This is not a generic romantic comedy where the girl is really sweet and the guy is really sweet and they end up together. Subversive stuff on the whole has got to be cheaper."

As an actress who has made both big studio films and small indies, Weisz has a unique perspective on the Hollywood machine.

"Sure, I turn down big budget movies to do (films I really want)," she says. "But even when you do an independent movie, you get really well paid. I mean, the big ones you get paid ridiculous amounts, but the little ones you get paid more than enough to live off comfortably. If you're doing independent movies you're not living in poverty at all. You're... wealthy."

Somehow, the fact that this interview is being conducted at the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton was a clue. But at the very least, it seems Weisz is putting her money to good use.

"My mum's a big fan of black and white movies," Weisz explains. "She didn't have cable and I recently got (it for her) and she sits and watches the Turner channel�she's literally in heaven. They're on all night long�all those classic movies."

"Those classic movies" were an inspiration to Weisz, as well, who says she is influenced by "Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, (Marilyn) Monroe�all the black and white actresses I grew up with."

So how did the little girl who watched classic films with her mother get to star in them?

"You have to work really, really hard," Weisz says. "In the '50s, (my mom) read all those movie (magazines) and she lapped it all up, that if you were an actress all you had to do was be in a tight sweater eating an ice cream sundae somewhere and you'd be spotted. Unfortunately," she says, "it doesn't happen like that."

Weisz pauses again, reconsiders. "Actually, I wore a very tight sweater when I met Neil, so maybe that helped."