Rachel was born in London, England and grew up in Hampstead. Her mother, Edith Ruth, is a Vienna-born Austrian psychotherapist and aspiring actress. Her father, George Weisz, is a Hungarian-born inventor whose family fled to England to escape Nazi persecution. Weisz's father is Jewish and her mother has been referred to as either Catholic, Jewish, or having Jewish ancestry. Weisz was raised in a cerebral Jewish household and refers to herself as Jewish. Weisz has a sister, Minnie Weisz, who is an artist.

Weisz was educated at North London Collegiate School. She was then sent to Benenden School and eventually settled when she was about 13 in St Paul's Girls' School. She then entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated with a 2:1 in English. At the age of 14 she turned down a part in the film King David (starring Richard Gere), because her parents wanted her to first finish the school and she was also afraid of her schoolmates´s jealousy. While studying at Cambridge University she and her friend formed the Talking Tongues theatre company. At the Edinburgh Festival, they introduced a Neville Southalla´s play The Washbag directed by their friend David Farra (David is now an art directorof the Gate Theatre) and won The Gurdian Student Drama Award.

Because of that she moved to London, where she played in a theatre and also in TV films. She first played in Donmar Theatre and then in West End in Noël Coward´s comedy Design for Living for which she received the Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer (year 1994).

Rachel first earned the attention of an international audience with her role as Miranda Fox in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty (starring Liv tyler). But she almost destroyed her career in the biginning because of role as doctor Sinclair in the movie Chain reaction (directed by A. Davis, co-stared Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman).

But in 1999 Rachel's costarring role in the Brendan Fraser debacle The Mummy opened to a whopping 43.4 million dollar box office take. “We called it scoobydoobydoo acting. We ran around shouting ‘I HATE MMMMMMUMMIES’ and ’scoobydoobydoo’.” After that year Rachel shooted film after film, for example Enemy at the gates, Mummy returns or About a boy.

Though she became famous actress, she didn´t forget the theatre. She starred for example in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer.

Rachel mostly dated her colleagues like Neil Morrissey, Alessandro Nivola, Keanu Reeves or Sam Mendes. Finally, she met Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky.

In the spring of 2005 news of Darren proposing to Rachel leaked out. Darren had phoned Rachel's father to ask for permission for his daughter's hand and then he proposed in the hubbub of New York's Times Square after the couple returned from filming his new movie The Fountain in Montreal. Of course, Rachel Weisz answered "yes" to the big question. After one year Rachel gave birth to their first son Henry.

In January 2006, she received the Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Tessa Quayle in The Constant Gardener AND got her first Academy Award for the same performance in March AND on May 31st, she gave birth to her first son, Henry. What a year, huh? :) Well let´s just hope every other year will be only better :)