Rachel Griffiths

Born: 1968
Where: Melbourne, Australia

The Oscar-nominated star won acclaim for her portrayal of Rhonda, the ABBA-loving friend who helps Toni Colette out of her shell in the Aussie comedy Muriel's Wedding.

The actress has gone on to win plaudits for Hilary and Jackie, Cosi, Among Giants and as Brenda in the award-winning TV series Six Feet Under.

The daughter of an art consultant and Jesuit priest, she studied drama and dance education at the University of Melbourne.

Next she joined the Australian theatre group, The Woolly Jumpers, had a role in the short film Barbie Gets Hip, and played a lead role in the Aussie TV series Secrets.

Her 1994 breakthrough in Muriel's Wedding landed her an Australian Film Institute Award as best supporting actress.

Griffiths went on to co-star in Cosi, as the law-student girlfriend of a drifter working as a therapist in a mental hospital and Jude as the sexy first wife who eventually abandons Christopher Eccleston's title character.

She followed this in 1998 as one of the oddball residents in Stephan Elliott's Welcome to Woop Woop before coming into her own with a superb portrayal of flautist Hilary du Pre in the biopic Hilary and Jackie.

Rachel's richly observed characterisation in the latter film was rewarded by a best supporting actress Oscar nomination.

She delivered a virtuoso performance in Pip Karmel's Me, Myself, I and next joined Alan Rickman and Josh Hartnett for the hairdressing comedy Blow Dry.

She played Johnny Depp's mother in the drug drama Blow, starred in Very Annie Marie and then switched to the small screen for the American hit series Six Feet Under.

Outside cinema she gained some degree of fame when she ran topless through Melbourne's Crown Casino on its opening night in protest.

When asked why she felt the need to do so she replied :"If I didn't flash my tits, you wouldn't have put me in the paper!"

Recent work includes Dennis Quaid's wife in Disney's baseball drama The Rookie and as Carol Twentyman in the hardboiled Aussie robbery drama The Hard Word.

Upcoming projects include Ned Kelly, alongside Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush.