Rachel Weisz The Mummy (1999)

Rachel Weisz (born March 7, 1970, London, England) starred as Evelyn Carnahan in The Mummy (1999)^b4 and reprised the role in The Mummy Returns (2001). She declined to return for Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) and was replaced by Maria Bello.

Sommers fought the studio to cast a British actress

Universal preferred American actresses for Evelyn. Stephen Sommers — who had written the character as half-British, half-Egyptian — refused.

"They're all American. She should be English." — Stephen Sommers, The Hollywood Reporter (2024)

Weisz had been working primarily in British theatre and television; her highest-profile film role to date had been Stealing Beauty (1996), Bertolucci's coming-of-age drama. The Mummy was her first studio lead. She brought a stage actress's relationship to language, which mattered in a film where her character's defining skill is reading Ancient Egyptian aloud under pressure.^{b16 b37}

"It was very, very joyful. It was not a heavy going set." — Rachel Weisz, Newsweek (2024)

"She was just a very unusual female character. She was a librarian, and she was in the middle of this action movie. She was funny and kind of mischievous and honest." — Rachel Weisz, Newsweek (2024)

The library domino scene was completed in a single take

The opening Cairo Museum library sequence — twelve thousand books crashing in domino sequence — was shot once. There was no second pass.^b4

"I got given the funniest line I probably ever had to say — 'Oops,' after all these bookshelves crashed into each other." — Rachel Weisz, Newsweek (2024)

"I think we had really good chemistry. We really got on and everyone threw their heart and soul into it." — Rachel Weisz, Newsweek (2024)

Weisz won an Oscar six years after The Mummy

Weisz pivoted from The Mummy franchise into prestige drama. The Mummy gave her bankability; she spent the next decade trading it for the kind of work she actually wanted. That trade-off culminated in The Constant Gardener (2005), Fernando Meirelles's adaptation of John le Carré's pharmaceutical-conspiracy novel, for which Weisz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Year	Film	Notes
1996	Stealing Beauty	First major film role
1999	The Mummy	A-list breakthrough
2001	The Mummy Returns	Sequel
2001	Enemy at the Gates	Stalingrad romance opposite Jude Law
2002	About a Boy	Hugh Grant ensemble
2005	The Constant Gardener	Academy Award, Best Supporting Actress
2006	The Fountain	Aronofsky
2008	The Brothers Bloom	Rian Johnson
2010	Agora	Hypatia of Alexandria
2013	Oz the Great and Powerful	Sam Raimi
2015	Youth	Sorrentino
2017	Disobedience	TIFF premiere; US wide release April 2018
2018	The Favourite	Second Oscar nomination
2021	Black Widow	Marvel debut as Melina Vostokoff
2027	The Mummy 4	Reported return to the role1

She declined the third Mummy in 2007, citing the script and scheduling — she had been visibly pregnant when she won the Oscar for The Constant Gardener in March 2006, and her son Henry was born that May. The role of Evelyn was recast with Maria Bello, and the audience response was widely considered an indication of how much Weisz had carried in the first two films. (cbr)