Biographical information
Gender	Male
Eye color	Blue
Hair color	Grey
Born	July 6, 1951 Toowoomba, Queensland
Behind the scenes
First appearance	The Curse of the Black Pearl
Latest appearance	On Stranger Tides
Character(s) portrayed	Hector Barbossa

Geoffrey Roy Rush, (born July 6, 1951), is an Australian Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning actor. An acclaimed actor, he started his career in Australian theater, had appeared in over 70 theatrical productions and more than 20 feature films. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the foundation President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. He was the 2012 Australian of the Year. Geoffrey Rush portrayed Hector Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films and the Disneyland ride.

BiographyEdit

Early lifeEdit

Geoffrey Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, to Merle (née Kiehne), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. 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 (QTC) in Brisbane. He then studied at the Jacques Lecoq School of Mime, Movement and Theater in Paris. Returning to Australia, 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 the 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.

CareerEdit

Stage careerEdit

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 (with the State Theatre Company of South Australia in 1987 at The Playhouse in Adelaide), and Troilus and Cressida (at the Old Museum Building in 1989). He also appeared in an on-going production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest as John Worthing (Ernest) (in which his wife, Jane Menelaus, appeared as Gwendolen).

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 (and the circumstances), 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 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 careerEdit

Multiple-award-winning actor Geoffrey Rush was catapulted to fame with his starring role in director Scott Hicks' feature Shine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, Film Critics' Circle of Australia Award, Broadcast Film Critics, AFI and New York and Los Angeles Film Critics' Awards. In addition, Rush won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his captivating performance as the title character in HBO Films' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in Philip Kaufman's Quills and an Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe nomination for his role in Shakespeare in Love. His other film credit include The Weinstein Company's The King's Speech, in which he stars as the speech therapist Lionel Logue and also serves as the executive producer. He won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and earned an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination and a SAG nomination for his performance.

Other film credits include The Warrior's Way, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, Munich, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Candy, Intolerable Cruelty, Finding Nemo, Ned Kelly, Lantana, Frida, The Tailor of Panama, House on Haunted Hill, Mystery Men, Les Miserables, A Little Bit of Soul, Children of the Revolution, On Our Selection, Twelfth Night, Oscar and Lucinda and Starstruck.

Pirates of the CaribbeanEdit

FilmsEdit

Geoffrey Rush's best known role was his acclaimed portrayal as Captain Hector Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Though his character originally was killed in the first film The Curse of the Black Pearl, he was shown to have been resurrected his surprise last-minute appearance in the second film, Dead Man's Chest, setting his return in future installments. In the majority of credits and promotional material, the character was mostly referred to as either "Captain Barbossa" or simply "Barbossa"; only Johnny Depp had given the character the first name "Hector" while joking with Rush on set^[1], though later used it onscreen as of At World's End.

Throughout his involvement in the four films, Geoffrey Rush had liked the idea that Barbossa's character seemed to evolved, stating that it was the best part of his involvement in the series:

The best part, for me, has been that the writers have managed to give an evolution to the character. He started out as this spat out from hell villain who was the bad guy and an evil dude. And in the course of the subsequent films, he used those particular powers to become a politician, brokering a G20 summit of Pirate Lords. In the last film, he went over to the other side and worked for the king. So, on that level, it feels as though I'm going into a new terrain each time, which is terrific.^[2]

The RideEdit

To coincide with the release of Dead Man's Chest, enhancements were made to the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at the Disney Parks unveiled on July 7, 2006. Among the enhancements was Geoffrey Rush reprising his role as Captain Barbossa by lending his voice to an Audio-Animatronic with Rush's likeness installed. The realistic animatronic figure of Captain Barbossa was added on the pirate galleon Wicked Wench, which appeared in the cannon-blasting scene where the ship was bombarding a fort on-shore. His voice would be heard, with "The Medallion Calls" playing in the background, as guests pass through the battle scene of the attraction. In one of his going on the ride around the release of On Stranger Tides, Geoffrey Rush said of Barbossa on the ride, "It's really good."^[3]

AppearancesEdit

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Barbossa
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Barbossa (uncredited)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - Barbossa
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Barbossa
• Pirates of the Caribbean (ride) - Captain Barbossa (voice)

External linksEdit

• Geoffrey Rush on Wikipedia
• Geoffrey Rush at the Internet Movie Database

Notes and referencesEdit