Rachel Weisz

Interview By: Christian Ghigliotty

ChristianGhigliotty@TheCinemaSource.com

When Rachel Weisz steps into a room, she seems to have a glow that pushes everything around her into the background. For someone who is only 5’7″ this would seem like a daunting task but the thirty four-year old actress does it with formidable poise and looks so classic, she could give any of the goddesses on Mt. Olympus a run for their money. And yet despite the impressive room presence, when musing over Tessa—her volatile character in The Constant Gardner—she recedes into a stream of consciousness that transmogrifies our rendezvous into an open mic, my ears welcoming her accented lyrical balladry.

Even with a resume that has had her play a number of dynamic characters, she seems more at home when describing Tessa, talking as if she were a close friend, someone we should all know and perhaps even aspire to be. “I’ve always been fascinated by people who will devote their life to help other people, you know people who go to India or Africa and work in the fields and help people, putting their own lives in danger to do what they believe is right… I mean what makes them tick, what makes them so driven? That I had to put myself in the skin of somebody who was like that is what really appealed to me about her, she is someone who believes that one person can make a difference or that her helping one person can make a difference and I think that’s a very optimistic and useful outlook.”

The political thriller takes aim at unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies, at a time where they arguably are on par with most arms dealers. Weisz plays Tessa Quayle, wife to British diplomat Justin Quayle (Fiennes), who finds that a corrupt pharmaceutical company is using helpless Africans as guinea pigs to test experimental tuberculosis remedy with fatal side affects. And even with an acclaimed director and a

page turning script, above all, it was Tessa that attracted Weisz to the film—that opportunity, however, almost never came. Mike Newell (Pushing Tin, Mona Lisa Smile) was originally attached to the project, along with Fiennes but minus our leading lady. When his involvement fell through and Fernando Meirelles (City of God) was tapped to direct, Weisz moved heaven, earth and everything in between to meet with the visionary director. “I had a day off and I managed to fly to London and back in twenty-four hours. I met him for an hour and went back… He kept on meeting people and I wrote him a very passionate letter telling him why I wanted to work with him and so I really wanted this role.”

With leads Weisz and Fiennes locked and Brazil’s most acclaimed director threading a visceral patchwork narrative, production shifted into high gear, with the chic aura of London giving way to the squalid slums of Africa. Here, Weisz is quick to cite that her experiences in Africa helped her to really flesh out Tessa, giving her the inspiration to crawl into the skin of someone that is really different from herself in many ways. “I was introduced to a lot of activist people who worked in the field and they told me their stories, it’s like your jobs, asking questions, and you start to absorb things but the real work and the real inspiration came in Africa. When I met the people in Africa, that’s when my heart become really full of this character. Also there was this woman in particular who was a Kenyan activist who had been living with AIDS for twelve years and she went around the slum, counseling woman who were HIV sufferers, and she allowed me to go with her on these visits and that was a tremendous privilege because I really thought the experience was the kind of thing my character would experience.”

The results are

painfully moving, as Weisz’s performance shows Tessa’s passion for tackling the seemingly impossible; her character’s flaw is also her greatest strength, with her trials and tribulations serving as a window to the injustices that not only the victims face but the fatal consequences that face those who try and act as their voice. The time spent in Africa may have helped to create a great movie but more important was the lasting affect Africa had on filmmakers; The Constant Gardner Charitable Trust charity was established, which helped to build a school and bridge while filming on location, and will also aid in building a secondary school in the North Africa in the near future. Weisz hopes that the ambitious film will ruffle enough feathers to keep awareness on the subject matter booming. “I think it touches on subjects that are very, very hot right now, very current topics that are in the newspapers and the news; the media is paying attention to pharmaceutical companies so I think its a smart thriller and I think, I hope that it will continue the debate that has already been raging on right now.”