Geoffrey Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian Academy Award winning actor. He was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, the son of Roy and Merle Rush. He began his acting career with the Queensland Theatre Company in Brisbane. He also has an Arts Degree from the University of Queensland. While at university, he roomed with Mel Gibson.
Geoffrey Rush has appeared on stage in the Brisbane Arts Theatre, as well as in many other theatre venues, and has worked as a theatre director.
Geoffrey Rush also appeared in the William Shakespeare plays, "The Winter's Tale" with the South Australia Theatre Company in 1987 (at The Playhouse in Adelaide, South Australia), and "Troilus and Cressida" (at the Old Museum Building in 1989). He also appeared in an on-going production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" as "John Worthing".
Geoffrey Rush's film debut was in the Australian film Hoodwink in 1981. His next film was in Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck, the following year. In 1996, he starred in Shine, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. From that point on, his career skyrocketed.
In 1998 he appeared in three major films:Les Misérables, in which he played Inspector Javert; Elizabeth, in which he played the suspicious Sir Francis Walsingham; and Shakespeare in Love in which he played the acting company manager who remained calm in the midst of chaos (and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor).
In September, 1998, Geoffrey Rush played the title role in the Beaumarchais play "The Marriage of Figaro" for the Queensland Theatre Company. This was the opening production of the Optus Playhouse, at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at South Bank in Brisbane. A pun on Geoffrey Rush's name (and the circumstances), was used in the opening prologue of the play with the comment that the "Optus Playhouse was opening with a Rush".
In 2000, he received his third Academy Award nomination, for Quills, in which he played the Marquis de Sade.
Rush's career continues at an amazingly fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 through 2003. He starred in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, as Captain Barbossa, and is also to appear in sequels.
Geoffrey Rush played actor Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. For this performance, he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Mini-series or Movie.
In 2005, he starred in Steven Spielberg's film Munich as Ephraim, a cold Mossad officer.
Geoffrey Rush currently lives in Camberwell, a suburb of Melbourne. He has become involved in the preservation of heritage and architecture, becoming a figurehead for a campaign for the preservation of Camberwell Railway Station from demolition by developers and championing a National Trust of Australia (Victoria) poll for the Victorian Heritage Icons Awards.
Since 1988, Geoffrey Rush has been married to Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica (born 1992) and a son, James (born 1995).
Munich (2005)
