Biography And Filmography:

Actress Rachel Griffiths, born in Melbourne Australia, shot onto the movie screen portraying Toni Collette’s witty friend in the romantic comedy “Muriel’s Wedding” (1994), before appearing in numerous Australian, British, and American movies including “Hilary and Jackie” (1998), “Blow” (2001), starring Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz and “Ned Kelly” (2003) starring the late Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom. In 2001, she was hired and cast as Brenda Chenowith in the HBO smash hit television series “Six Feet Under” (2001-05).  She then joined another dysfunctional family in the starring role of Sarah Whedon in the television drama “Brothers and Sisters”.

Rachel Griffiths was born on Dec. 18, 1968,  in Melbourne, Australia, and attended Melbourne University, where she majored in philosophy, but ultimately left to seek a career in show business. She then enrolled in the drama department at the Victoria School of the Arts where she excelled, studying all areas of drama production including managing, writing and directing, before deciding to become an actress. After college, she began work in the touring youth company "Woolly Jumpers Theater Company", and the Melbourne Theater Company. 

She worked on a few small television projects before her first big break when cast as Rhonda, the friend who helps Toni Collette break free of her introverted life in "Muriel's Wedding" (1994), where she earned an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Supporting Actress. 

She was next cast as Arabella, working with Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston in "Jude” (1996), where a stonemason persistently pursues a cousin he loves in this adaptation of the Thomas Hardy book. That same year, she again worked with Toni Collette in the comedy "Cosi,” portraying the legal student friend of a loner working as a therapist in a mental hospital. Next was the mystery thriller "To Have and to Hold” (1996), playing a romance writer wooed by a mysterious Frenchman,  and "Children of the Revolution" (1996), with Sam Neill and Judy Davis, where she played the leather uniform wearing policewoman who falls in love with the son of Josef Stalin.

Her big break came when she reunited with director P.J. Hogan and made her American movie debut portraying Cameron Diaz's cousin in "My Best Friend's Wedding” (1997) with Julia Roberts, the story about when a woman's long-time friend says he's engaged, she realizes she loves her fiance herself... and sets out to get him, with only days to go before the wedding. 

She was next cast in the co-starring role as Hilary, opposite Emily Watson in "Hilary and Jackie" (1998). Even though co-star Emily Watson got most of the attention playing the more flashy Jacqueline du Pre, Griffiths gave the movie an emotional balance that earned Rachel a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination from the Academy. 

She then tried her hand at comedy in the film “Among Giants” (1998), where a manager hires a man, off the books, to paint all the electric towers in a 15-mile stretch of high-tension wires outside the city of Sheffield. Audiences enjoyed the movie, but critics found it dull, and box-office numbers were almost non-existent. Her next comedy was "Divorcing Jack" (1998), a black romantic comedy set around the troubled "peace process" and its effect on a cynical Belfast man. She wrapped her year taking the starring role in the romantic comedy “Me, Myself I” (1999), where her character is unhappy, and alone, but on her birthday stumbles across a photo of an old flame and wonders what would've happened had she said yes to his proposal.

The actress then took the part of Sandra in the comedy "Blow Dry" (2001), also starring Natasha Richardson, Rachael Leigh Cook and a young Josh Hartnett, a low-budget story about a family of barbers and hairdressers who compete in The annual British Hairdressing Championship. But her next role would put her back on the Hollywood map, and shoot the actress into the status of hot celebrity.

The role that made the actress a household name was as Ermine Jung, working opposite Johnny Depp in the crime thriller "Blow" (2001), where she played Depp's suburban mother in the frantic world of cocaine dealing, in the story of George Jung, the man who established the American cocaine market in the 1970's. In the fall of 2001, she won her first starring television role in the HBO series "Six Feet Under." A drama series that takes a darkly comical look at members of a dysfunctional Pasadena family that runs an independent funeral home. Her work won the actress two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in A Drama Series. She stayed with the series for 61 episodes, while continuing to appear in feature films. 

Griffiths then lent her distinctive voice to the animated family adventure movie “The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina” (2004), working with other famous voices including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Elijah Wood and Peter Gallagher. She left “Six Feet Under” when the series aired its fifth and final season in 2005. But the actress would not stay away from series television for long, and soon found herself back on the small screen in the smash hit “Brothers & Sisters” (2006- ). The series tells the family tale of five brothers and sisters who take up the family’s money-spinning produce business after the sudden death of their father (Tom Skerritt). She played the role of Sarah Whedon, the smart and stable sister who keeps her misery over a troubled marriage bottled-up, while at the same time, decompressing from the high-powered corporate business world to the slower pace of the family business. 

In the fall of 2007, the actress received her third Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for her performance on “Brothers & Sisters”. and wrapped her year starring in the mystery movie "Beautiful Kate" (2008), about death and love in the Australian outback, and a family dealing with their past mistakes.

Watch Rachel Griffiths In The "Brothers & Sisters" Blooper Gag Reel

[Home]     [Male Celebrities]     [Female Celebrities]