Since her role of Rhonda Epinstalk in MURIEL'S WEDDING, Rachel Griffiths has gone on to become one of Australia's most respected stage and screen actors.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Role for HILARY AND JACKIE in 1999, she is also the winner of three AFI Awards. Rachel has also appeared on Broadway and starred in the acclaimed television series SIX FEET UNDER and BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
In a candid interview, Margaret speaks to Rachel about her life, career and hopes for the future.
Further comments
In Conversation with Rachel Griffiths
DAVID: Good evening. Tonight an At the Movies special: In Conversation with Rachel Griffiths. Since her breakthrough role in MURIEL'S WEDDING, Griffiths has gone on to become one of our most versatile actors. Nominated for an Academy Award and winner of three AFI Awards, Griffiths has also appeared on Broadway and starred in the acclaimed television series SIX FEET UNDER and BROTHERS & SISTERS. Margaret recently spoke to Rachel about her career and her life.
MARGARET: Well, Rachel, I must say it's very nice having you back in Australia.
RACHEL: Oh, it's such a pleasure.
MARGARET: I want to go back in time to when you were very young and the influences in your life that most probably had a say in where you are now?
RACHEL: Wow! God, I haven't been asked to go back for a while. I had a pretty interesting childhood creatively, in that we didn't have a television for a lot of it so there was a lot of, I guess, product I wasn't exposed to. My mother took me to a variety of often strange theatre. You know people suspended and Shakespeare or Indian dance or outdoor performances in interesting contexts. Basically if it was cheap and strange we went.
I was quite academic. I had a great passion for history and politics and literature and I did very well at school and I just followed the expected path off to university. I went to Melbourne University to study arts, having no idea really what I woul
