Half a century into her showbiz career, Jacki Weaver is making a name for herself in Hollywood. The 65-year-old Australian actress has earned a 2013 Academy Award nomination for her role in Silver Linings Playbook.
In the Best Supporting Actress category, the film, stage and television star is going up against Les Miserables' Anne Hathaway, The Master's Amy Adams, Lincoln's Sally Field and The Sessions' Helen Hunt. In director David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, Weaver plays the mother of an adult son (Bradley Cooper) suffering from mental illness bipolar disorder and the wife of an obsessive-compulsive sports fanatic (Robert De Niro).
Playing the peace-keeper of the family in the film has earned Weaver recognition for the Academy. Here, Us Weekly shares five things you might not know about the Academy Award nominee.
1. Weaver's been acting professionally for 50 years. She began working when she was 15 years old, and was cast in the Australian TV series Wandjina! in 1966. Weaver made her film debut in 1971's Stork, and won her first Australian Film Institute Award for the role.
2. She's not an Oscars first-timer. This is Weaver's second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Weaver earned a nod in 2011 for her role in the Australian thriller Animal Kingdom as Janie "Smurf" Cody. "I was so dazed then!" she said New York Magazine's Vulture about earning her first nomination. Weaver lost the award to The Fighter actress Melissa Leo.
3. Weaver's first Hollywood film was in 2012's The Five-Year Engagement opposite Jason Segel and Emily Blunt. In the film, she plays the British mother of Blunt's character. "I just thought it was so charming with such a great sense of humor that I couldn't have thought of a better way to start working in America," she told Inside Film of taking the role. But not many of her scenes made it into the movie. "I'm surprised I'm still in the film. We shot about four hours of stuff. I reckon we could do a TV series out of it. A lot of it, of necessity — even though it's a long film — has gone by the wayside."
4. She believes in having sex on the first date. "Otherwise, how do you know if a second date is worth the effort?" she wrote frankly in her 2008 memoir, Much Love, Jac. "I tend to say things to shock people because I love getting a reaction," the actress explained to Vulture in November 2012.
5. Weaver has been married five times. She was previously married to David Price, Max Hensser, Derryen Nigel Hinch (twice) and is currently married to actor Sean Taylor since 2003. Weaver has one son, Dylan, from a previous relationship with John Walters, and two grandchildren. "I've had five weddings, but I like to count significant de factos. So really, I've had nine husbands," she told Jay Leno in January 2013. "I'm a serial monogamist." She was 18 when she first got married to Price, and says she was proposed to on their first date. "Well, the sex was so good," Weaver joked.
The 2013 Academy Awards air Sunday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. (EST) on ABC.
