Playboy's 20Q: Rachel Weisz

1

Playboy: Please explain your intense interest in Harry Houdini.

Weisz: He was one of the earliest socially acceptable images of S&M—bound and chained—standing there in pain but with a triumphant look on his face. That's not why I'm drawn to him. I just love the showmanship, that no prison, no chain could hold him. The art of illusion and, in general, escapology is fascinating. Houdini's last name originally was Weisz and he was Hungarian. My dad is Hungarian—my secret fantasy has always been that I'm related to Houdini.

2

Playboy: Your mom is a psychotherapist. Does that mean there's a greater likelihood you'll end up on a couch?

Weisz: A casting couch or a psychoanalyst's couch? I just avoid couches in general. Best to stay off the couch.

3

Playboy: You spent some of your childhood in Austria. Could psychoanalysis have been invented anywhere else?

Weisz: I can't think of anywhere else it could have happened. Turn-of-the-century Vienna was completely wild culturally. It was Victorian, but it had these amazing double standards. So while it was very Catholic, very moral, there was this fiery counterculture going on. There were masked orgies in the Vienna woods. There was incredible sexual liberation at the time that gave birth to psychoanalysis, which was all about what was really going on underneath. Freud had plenty to work with in Austria.

4

Playboy: What's the greatest psychological insight that your mother ever gave you?

Weisz: Never trust a man in a bow tie. It's not true actually, because my dad is in his 70s now and he's taken to wearing bow ties. But my mom is slightly tongue-in-cheek about it. She's just full of balls of wisdom.

5

Playboy: You did a nice job capturing the classic lace-bloused, heaving-bosom allure of a librarian in The Mummy. Did you take that look home with you?

Weisz: I got a letter from a librarian in England who said she felt I totally misrepresented librarians. She was really angry. I kept the letter. In the movie my character was kind of clumsy, a bit forgetful and a little ditsy, and this librarian wondered why a librarian would be so ditsy. She wrote me that librarians come in all different shapes, sizes and styles, which I guess is true.

6

Playboy: In Enemy at the Gates you achieved the impossible—looking incredibly sexy while being filthy dirty. Did you realize you were paving new cinematic ground?

Weisz: Wow, no. I don't think so. But we definitely got into the mud and the dirt. It was quite refreshing because normally in a movie you're made to look good all the time. The worse we looked, the better. The more mud on our face, the more dust in our hair, the better. It's quite liberating. It's like being a kid in a sandpit. Kids love to get dirty, climb trees, get messy. It's a good feeling. I was lucky I had a hot bath every night. I didn't sleep in the mud.

7

Playboy: Your father is an inventor. What did you wish he would have invented?

Weisz: Probably a potion that you can drink and be invisible. That would be great. It would be fascinating to be able to watch people and they wouldn't be able to see you. It would be useful to me as an actor because part of your job is to watch people. But it would be useful for other reasons, too. I'd go to the White House, find out what Bush is up to—what's really going on in there.

8

Playboy: What things have you done while listening to Stairway to Heaven?

Weisz: I'm afraid nothing too exotic. Driven a car. Definitely gone jogging. It makes me run if I listen to it on a Walkman. I've danced. Really boring things. I've cooked. Well, that's a lie. I have boiled eggs, I should say. Gotten ready to go out.

9

Playboy: How come actors want to be rock-and-roll stars and rock-and-roll stars want to be actors?

Weisz: Hard to say, since very few people can do both. Jack Black is one of the few who can pull it off. He's a rock star, an actor, a comedian. Jack is the ultimate combo.

10

Playboy: Your father called your lips "Mick Jagger lips." Did you work with that?

Weisz: Mine aren't as big as Mick's. My younger sister's, Minnie's, are. I think they rival Jagger's lips. If I had said it to someone I would have meant it as a compliment, because I think he's got amazing lips. But from my dad, who's missed out on rock and roll, it was not a compliment. He was saying that I move my mouth too much. It wasn't like Greta Garbo–still enough. So it was not a compliment.

11

Playboy: You own a Jaguar. Are you crazy? (concluded on page 140)Rachel Weisz(continued from page 117)

Weisz: NO! I just sold it. It was my beautiful vintage car, one of the most beautiful cars ever. It was a Seventies model, a 4.2 Sovereign. It was a very big, powerful car, a four-door.

12

Playboy: Did you have a special arrangement with your mechanic?

Weisz: I wish. No, it just cost me lots of pounds. The final straw was—I'm not well versed mechanically—but the power-steering fluid container sprung a leak so all the fluid drained onto the ground, and I had to drive this huge car without power steering, which meant my muscles and arms were really challenged. It was like driving a truck. Everything that could go wrong went wrong with the car. I finally sold it for parts. The person who bought my Jag was just going to chuck it up. That's all it was good for.

13

Playboy: We understand you are an Elvis fan. Do you accept everything about him or are there some parts of his life about which you're in denial?

Weisz: Some Elvis fans have read all the biographies and know everything about him. I love the way he looked and I listen to his music, but I'm not a fanatic. I think I just fell in love with him when I was a little girl, watching his movies on TV on Saturday afternoons. I'm not in denial about any moment of Elvis' life. What's incredible to me is that at the end of his career when he was fat and drugged up and not himself, he could still sing. What's that famous recording where he bursts out laughing? He's drunk out of his mind. Even then, he sang like an angel, like nothing could steal his voice from him. It was effortless for him. So I loved him in all stages. I think he was cute even when he was fat and wasted.

14

Playboy: Have you ever been tempted to try a deep-fried banana and peanut butter sandwich?

Weisz: No, I haven't. I've heard that one sandwich is, like, 4000 calories. I think it's fascinating that Elvis and Brando—two of the most beautiful and lusted-after male icons ever-both said, "Fuck you, quit treating me like a sex object" and got fat. Interesting, isn't it?

15

Playboy: You went to Cambridge. What is the title of your favorite paper?

Weisz: I don't think you're going to want to print this. My favorite essay is "For the Etruscans" by the American feminist writer Rachel Blau DuPlessis. It's about wondering where, or if, there is a female language rather than a male language. Most things around us were created by men. The paper questions if behind the language or words there is something else. It's written in a nonlinear style—a way in which women might think. Like, if a man's telling a story and says, "I was walking down the street," the woman asks, "What time was it?" "It doesn't matter what time it was. I was walking down the street." It's kind of all over the place.

16

Playboy: What's the best paper you wrote?

Weisz: I did a paper on Henry James that would have been published in the Henry James Quarterly. I was asked to edit it. I had to lose 1000 words, and I didn't bother. So I'm unpublished.

17

Playboy: Could you date anyone less educated than you?

Weisz: Sure. Definitely. There are different kinds of intelligence. I would like to believe that love transcends everything—that someone who is from America could flirt with someone from Japan. It's a completely different culture. Love should transcend all.

18

Playboy: How do you flirt like a Brit?

Weisz: I think that Americans are just as good. At the end of the day, flirting is a pretty universal language. Americans are more direct. British people are more indirect about everything. I'm making this up as I go along. How am I supposed to know? I like American men, let me just say that.

19

Playboy: Can you explain the sorry state of British dentistry?

Weisz: Well, I guess the real answer is because our health care has been free. You go to the dentist here and they will tell you that you have eight cavities when you really maybe have only one. In England they'll tell you that you haven't got any because dental care is free. Actually, that's not true. Now you have to pay for your dental work. It was free for a long time. We don't cap our teeth and try to make everything look perfect. You have pretty unattainable images of perfection that, to us, are sort of characterless. We like a bit of character—a little yellowing, a little rotting, a little wonky, coffee stains, cigarette stains. Irregular teeth—we like that.

20

Playboy: Maybe the Brit medical community spent too much time developing those veterinary skills.

Weisz: I'm sure! I don't have a pet, but I'm sure that we have the best vets in the world. As you know, the British love their pets more than their children.

Even when Elvis was drunk, he sang like an angel. I think he was cute even when he was fat and wasted.