Who is Geoffrey Rush?
Geoffrey Rush is an Australian actor, born in Toowoomba, Queensland, in 1951. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing pianist David Helfgott in Shine in 1997.
Rush studied at the University of Queensland and trained in Paris before building a long career in Australian theatre. He worked with Queensland Theatre and in Sydney, sharing a flat with Mel Gibson early in his career.
Shine made him an international star. He is one of the few actors to have won the so-called Triple Crown of Acting: an Oscar, an Emmy for The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and a Tony for Exit the King on Broadway.
Famous roles
Rush played Captain Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, speech therapist Lionel Logue in The King's Speech, which earned him another Oscar nomination, and Philip Henslowe in Shakespeare in Love.
He was named Australian of the Year in 2012 and was the founding president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.
In 2019, he won a defamation case against a newspaper publisher in the Federal Court of Australia over reports about his conduct during a theatre production.
Did You Know?
Rush also received Oscar nominations for Shakespeare in Love and Quills.