Andrew Pulver 

Post your questions for Geoffrey Rush

He’s got an Oscar, played Albert Einstein, and even shared a flat with Mel Gibson. Now, the Australian actor is here to answer your questions
  
  

Geoffrey Rush in The Rule of Jenny Pen.
Lots to ask … Geoffrey Rush in The Rule of Jenny Pen. Photograph: Stan Alley/IFC Films and Shudder

It’s not all that often you get the chance to put your questions to an honest-to-goodness best actor Oscar winner, but that’s what we’ve got coming down the pipe. Geoffrey Rush won the big one back in 1997 for his role as pianist David Helfgott in Shine, and he’s won a ton of others, including Baftas, Golden Globes, an Emmy, a Tony and four Screen Actors Guild awards. In fact it’s easier to ask what award hasn’t he won?

Now, Australia has produced more than its fair share of premium acting talent, from Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman to Nicole Kidman and Guy Pearce, but Rush is definitely up there with the best of them. Aside from Shine, he’s excelled in The King’s Speech (another Oscar nod), Quills (as the Marquis de Sade), Pirates of the Caribbean (as undead buccaneer Hector Barbossa), literary drama The Eye of the Storm, and in the title role of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

He’s also got a good line in heavyweight political and authority figures, including spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham in Blanchett’s Elizabeth films, Leon Trotsky in Salma Hayek’s Frida, Albert Einstein in an episode of the TV series Genius, and (what’s this?) the god Ra in trash fantasy epic Gods of Egypt. And he plays a former judge living in a care home in his spooky-looking new film, The Rule of Jenny Pen.

Off screen, Rush has done a ton of theatre – back in the early days, obviously, but also in eyecatching productions later on, including Exit the King, Diary of a Madman, and King Lear. He even shared a flat with Mel Gibson when they were both struggling young actors in the late 1970s. So there’s no doubt lots to get into – leave your questions in the comments below, and we’ll print his replies in Film & Music.

• The Rule of Jenny Pen is in UK and Irish cinemas from 14 March.

 

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