Geoffrey Roy Rush, AC, is an Australian actor and film producer.
He is one of the few people who have won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award,
a Tony Award and an Emmy Award.
He has won one Academy Award for acting, three British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe
Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
He is the founding President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and
was named the 2012 Australian of the Year.
Early life Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, to
Merle, a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the
Royal Australian Air Force.
His father was of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry, and his mother was of German descent.
His parents divorced when he was five, and his mother subsequently took him to live with
her parents in suburban Brisbane.
Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School.
He also has an arts degree from the University of Queensland.
While at university, he was talent-spotted by Queensland Theatre Company in Brisbane.
Rush began his career with QTC in 1971, appearing in 17 productions.
In 1975, Rush went to Paris for two years and studied mime, movement and theatre at
L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, before returning to resume his stage
career with QTC.
In 1979, he shared an apartment with actor Mel Gibson for four months while they co-starred
in a stage production of Waiting for Godot.
Stage career Rush made his theatre debut in the QTC's production
of Wrong Side of the Moon.
He worked with the QTC for four years, appearing in roles ranging across classical plays & pantomime,
from Juno and the Paycock to Hamlet on Ice.
Following these, Rush left for Paris where he studied further.
Rush's acting credits include Shakespeare's plays, The Winter's Tale, and Troilus and
Cressida.
He also appeared in an on-going production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
as John Worthing.
In September 1998, Rush played the title role in the Beaumarchais play The Marriage of Figaro
for the QTC.
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, was used in the opening prologue of the play with the
comment that the "Optus Playhouse was opening with a Rush".
Rush has appeared on stage for the Brisbane Arts Theatre and in many other theatre venues.
He has also worked as a theatre director.
In 2007, he starred as King Berenger in a production of Eugène Ionesco's Exit the King
at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and Company B in Sydney, directed by Neil Armfield.
For this performance, he received a Helpmann Award nomination for best male actor in a
play.
Rush made his Broadway debut in a restaging of Exit the King under Malthouse Theatre's
touring moniker Malthouse Melbourne.
This restaging featured a new American cast including Susan Sarandon.
The show opened on 26 March 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Rush won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, the Distinguished
Performance Award from the Drama League Award and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance
by a Leading Actor in a Play.
In 2010, Rush played Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone on its Australian tour.
In 2011, Rush played the lead in a theatrical adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short atory
The Diary of a Madman at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Rush won for this role Helpmann Award and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award.
From November 2011, Rush played the role of Lady Bracknell in the Melbourne Theatre Company
production of The Importance of Being Earnest.
Other actors from the 1988 production include Jane Menelaus, this time as Miss Prism, and
Bob Hornery, who had played Canon Chasuble, as the two butlers.
Film career
Rush made his film debut in the Australian film Hoodwink in 1981.
His next film was Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck, the following year.
In the coming years he appeared in small roles on television dramas, including a role as
a dentist in a 1993 episode of the British television series Lovejoy.
He made his breakthrough performance in 1996 with Shine, for which he won the Academy Award
for Best Actor.
In 1998, he appeared in three major films: Les Misérables, Elizabeth, and Shakespeare
in Love for which he received his second Academy Award nomination as Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor.
In 1999, Rush took the lead role as Steven Price in the horror film House on Haunted
Hill.
In 2000, he received his third Academy Award nomination, for Quills, in which he played
the Marquis de Sade.
Rush's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 to 2003.
He starred in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, as Captain Hector
Barbossa, also appearing in its sequels, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and On Stranger
Tides.
Rush reprised his character's voice for the enhancements at the Pirates of the Caribbean
attractions at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom theme parks, which involved an Audio-Animatronic
with Rush's likeness being installed.
He also voiced Nigel the pelican in Finding Nemo.
Rush played actor Peter Sellers in the television film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.
For this performance, he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries
or a Movie, a SAG Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries,
and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture made for Television.
In 2005, he starred in Steven Spielberg's Munich as Ephraim, a Mossad agent.
In 2006, Rush hosted the Australian Film Institute Awards for the Nine Network.
He was the Master of Ceremonies again at the 2007 AFI Awards.
In 2010, Rush played speech therapist Lionel Logue in The King's Speech, a part that earned
him a BAFTA and nominations for the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting
Actor.
Rush returned as Captain Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,
starring Johnny Depp.
Rush is also preparing for a film version of The Drowsy Chaperone, an award-winning
stage musical.
In addition, he voiced the alien Tomar-Re in the film adaptation of the Green Lantern
comic book series.
In the beginning of 2009, Rush appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps
featuring some of Australia's internationally recognised actors.
He, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series.
Rush's image is taken from Shine.
In 2011, Rush made a cameo in a commercial, The Potato Peeler, for the Melbourne International
Film Festival, playing a Polish peasant.
He spoke his lines in Polish for the part.
In August 2011 he was appointed the foundation President of the newly formed Australian Academy
of Cinema and Television Arts.
In 2013, Rush starred alongside Jim Sturgess in The Best Offer and the film version of
the best-selling novel The Book Thief.
Personal life Since 1988, Rush has been married to actress
Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica, and a son, James.
Geoffrey Rush lives in Camberwell, Victoria.
Filmography Other awards
Awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Queensland, in Australia.
Awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen's New Year's Honours List for
his services to the arts especially through a distinguished acting career.
Appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2014, Australia's highest currently awarded
civilian honour, for eminent service to the arts as a theatre performer, motion picture
actor and film producer, as a role model and mentor for aspiring artists, and through support
for, and promotion of, the Australian arts industry.
2012: Australian of the Year 2011: Santa Barbara International Film Festival
– Montecito Award 2009: Australian Film Institute Longford Life
Achievement Award 2003: Australian Film Institute Awards – Global
Achievement Award 2004: Brisbane International Film Festival
– Chauvel Award 2003: Hollywood Film Festival for Supporting
Actor of the Year 1994: Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards
References
External links Geoffrey Rush at the Internet Movie Database
Geoffrey Rush at the Internet Broadway Database Geoffrey Rush – Stage acting credits
Professional photographs of Geoffrey Rush – National Library of Australia