Meet Rachel Weisz, Vladimir’s fiery professor who used to be a Cambridge University student

Academy Award winner and real life bond girl (she’s married to Daniel Craig?!) Rachel Weisz has twirled back onto screens with the Netflix hit Vladimir. In Netflix’s adaptation of Julia May Jonas’ popular novel, Rachel plays an English university professor, but did you know the Hollywood superstar has a real-life connection to academia too?

As well as being an alumnus of Cambridge University, Rachel Weisz is named as an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. While the title does not involve any actual teaching, it’s still pretty cool to think Rachel could be considered a professor even outside of Vladimir.

Where did Rachel Weisz go to university and what did she study?

via Netflix

Before she was fighting mummies in Egypt, or seducing Olivia Colman in Regency England, Rachel was just another fresher at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Rachel first arrived in Cambridge to study English literature in the late 1980s and, while Wednesday revs may not have been around then, she still found a way to fill her time.

Joining a university which has a pedigree of theatrical stars including Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Ian Mckellen and Eddy Redmayne (At this point the Oscar’s must just feel like a reunion of the ADC bar), Rachel stood out by funding her own theatre troupe The Talking Togues, which was known for its avant garde and often improvisational theatre. She took the group to the Edinburgh fringe where it won the Guardian Student theatre award.

Rachel clearly had a penchant for the unruly, travelling behind the Iron curtain with her Theatre troupe to watch avant garde European theatre. She later joked she was disappointed she never got recruited to be a spy (MI6 famously recruits from Cambridge), although she did play a Soviet assassin in 2021’s Black Widow.

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She balanced all this while achieving a 2:1 in her degree, and loved it so much she almost stayed on at Cambridge University for a PhD.

What did Rachel Weisz do after graduating Cambridge University?

via Netflix

Rachel said she was a bit “shy” and “terrible” at auditioning, even at uni productions. However, leading and surrounded by creatives including her future director in About a Boy Chris Weitz gave her the skills and diversity of performances to break out and less that fifteen years, later she won her first Academy Award.

She was later awarded an honorary fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Her Cambridge connection is especially fitting given her part as a literature professor in Netflix’s smash hit dark academia show Vladimir. You can only help but wonder which of her supervisors inspired the performance.

Featured image via Netflix