Rachel Griffiths

Infobox actor
name = Rachel Griffiths


imagesize =
caption =
birthdate = birth date and age|1968|12|18|df=yes
birthplace = Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
spouse = Andrew Taylor (2002-)
academyawards =
emmyawards =
birthname = Rachel Anne Griffiths
goldenglobeawards =
2003 "Six Feet Under"
sagawards = Best Ensemble - Drama Series
2002, 2003 "Six Feet Under"
afiawards = Best Supporting Actress
1994 "Muriel's Wedding"
International Award - Best Actress
2006 "Six Feet Under"

Rachel Anne Griffiths (born 18 December 1968) is an Australian Golden Globe- and SAG Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-nominated film and television actress known primarily for her roles in movies and television. Among her many notable roles, she is best known for her portrayal of Brenda Chenowith in the TV series "Six Feet Under" (2001-2005) and Sarah Walker on the ABC primetime drama "Brothers & Sisters" (2006-present).

Life and career

Early life

Born in Newcastle, New South Wales, Griffiths grew up in Melbourne with her art consultant mother and two older brothers. After earning a Bachelor of Education degree in drama and dance at Victoria College, Rusden, she began her career as a member of Woolly Jumpers, a community theatre group. She had her first success as the creator and performer of "Barbie Gets Hip", which played at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1991.

Career

Griffiths and Toni Collette were relative unknowns when they were cast as best friends and fellow outcasts in the 1994 film "Muriel's Wedding". Her performance won her critical acclaim and both the Australian Film Critics Award and the Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Supporting Actress. She followed this triumph in 1996 with the role of an earthy, ill-mannered pig farmer's wife in Michael Winterbottom's "Jude".

In 1997, Griffiths sparked a controversy after attending the opening of the Crown Casino topless and uninvited, her stated reasoning being the protest of the views taken by the media and state government towards the new casino, and inspired by the story of Lady Godiva. [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341737/] [http://film.guardian.co.uk/The_Oscars_1999/Story/0,4135,36396,00.html]

Griffiths joined forces again with "Muriel's Wedding" director P. J. Hogan for her American film debut, "My Best Friend's Wedding", in 1997. That same year she starred in "My Son the Fanatic", a British film in which she portrayed a tough Yorkshire prostitute who becomes involved with a considerably older Pakistani taxi driver (played by Om Puri).

Griffiths received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of real-life flautist Hilary du Pré opposite Emily Watson as her sister, famed cellist Jacqueline "Jackie" du Pre, in "Hilary and Jackie" (1998). She then appeared in 2001's "Blow", opposite Johnny Depp and Ray Liotta.

In 2001, Griffiths was cast as one of the leads in "Six Feet Under". Her performance as emotionally scarred massage therapist Brenda Chenowith earned her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as two Emmy Award nominations. In the third season, she missed four episodes due to her first pregnancy. Her second pregnancy was written into the show's final season. She appeared in almost every episode of the series.

At present, she is part of the ensemble cast, co-starring alongside Sally Field and Calista Flockhart, of the dramatic series "Brothers & Sisters", in which she portrays Sarah Walker Whedon, who inherits control of the family business after her father's death. Griffiths received a 2007 Emmy nomination and a 2008 Emmy nomination for her work on the series. She also played Inez Scull in the 2008 mini-series adaptation of Larry McMurtry's "Comanche Moon".

Personal life

Griffiths married Australian artist Andrew Taylor on 31 December 2002 at her old high school Star of the Sea College in Gardenvale (Melbourne). They have two children, son Banjo Patrick born 22 November 2003 in Melbourne and daughter Adelaide Rose, born 23 June 2005 in Los Angeles California. The children have dual US/Australian citizenship.

In June 2000, she explained her religious background and beliefs to "Madison" magazine. "Although I'm not Christian, I was raised Christian. I'm an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I've got a very strong sense of morality -- it's just a different morality than the loud voices of the Christian morality...I can't tell you how many films I've turned down because there was an absence of morality. And I don't mean that from any sort of Judeo-Christian/Muslim point of view. I'm not saying they're wrong and can't be made. But, fundamentally, I'm such a humanist that I can't bear to make films that make us feel humanity is more dark than it is light." [http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Rachel_Griffiths]

Filmography

Footnotes

External links

*imdb name|id=0341737|name=Rachel Griffiths
* [http://media.fairfax.com.au/?rid=25284 Broadband video interview with Rachel Griffiths, talking about Brothers & Sisters]

###@@@KEY@@@### s-ach
-! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Australian Film Institute Awards
-succession box
title = Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
years = 1994
for "Muriel's Wedding"
before= Judy Davis
for "On My Own"
after = Amanda Douge
for "That Eye the Sky"
-! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Golden Globe Award
-succession box
title =
years = 2002
for "Six Feet Under"
before= Vanessa Redgrave
for "If These Walls Could Talk 2"
after = Kim Cattrall
for "Sex and the City"

Persondata
NAME= Griffiths, Rachel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Griffiths, Rachel Anne
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Actress
DATE OF BIRTH= 18 December 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH= Melbourne, Victoria, Australia