Born in
Queensland
on July 6 1951,
Geoffrey
Rush
first started acting while studying at university, when he volunteered for parts in student revues. This led to him being talent-spotted by the Queensland Theatre Company, and after that the roles kept coming. Specialising in the works of great
playwrights like Shakespeare and Oscar
Wilde
,
Rush
was so overworked that he actually suffered a minor breakdown in 1992, when he was forced to a break from acting to recover.
The Big Break
Although he'd appeared in a few films,
Rush
was only known to theatre-goers before the 1996 film ‘Shine’ won him an Oscar and made him a household name overnight. It's now hard to believe he almost wasn't in it, but the studio bosses initially rejected
Rush
and demanded that a big name star take the part; it was only after much persuasion that
Rush
was awarded the role of
pianist
David
Helfgott
. He later joked about this in his Oscar acceptance speech, when he said: ‘This is dedicated to all those people who were happy to bankroll the film as long as I wasn't in it’.
Career Highs
The chameleonic
Rush
has excelled in a string of very different roles. He was chilling as a royal assassin in 1998's ‘Elizabeth’, hilarious as the debauched Marquis de Sade in 2000's ‘Quills’ and was marvellously malevolent as the undead villain in 2003's ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’.
Career Lows
Playing a character called ‘Casanova Frankenstein’ was never going to add any more Oscars to his mantelpiece, but
Rush
camped it up to great effect in the 1999 superhero spoof ‘Mystery Men’. The trouble was the film itself, which spluttered and died at the box office.
Did You Know?
Back when he was still a student,
Rush
shared a flat with another wannabe-actor by the name of
Mel
Gibson
! They were colleagues as well as friends, starring together in a 1979 stage production of the classic play ‘Waiting for Godot’, and remain close to this day.
The Final Word
All the awards and acclaim aren't everything to
Rush
. As he said of
Joseph
Fiennes
, with whom he starred in ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’: ‘He got to make love to
Gwyneth
Paltrow
and
Cate
Blanchett
. All I got was an Oscar nomination’.
