Jacki Weaver AO (b. 1947), actor, was a household name in Australia for 40 years before rising to international prominence. As a teenager Weaver appeared in stage productions in Sydney and sang on the Australian music show, Bandstand, before being cast in the children's television series Wandjina! at the age of eighteen. Six years later, in the heady period of Australian 'new wave' cinema, she won an AFI Award for her performance in Stork (1971). A string of films followed, including Alvin Purple (1973), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Caddie (1976), for which she won a second AFI Award. Alongside her subsequent television appearances, she acted in theatre productions including The Cherry Orchard, A Streetcar Named Desire, Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Death of a Salesman among many others. In 2010 and 2011 she played opposite Cate Blanchett in Uncle Vanya. Following her chilling performance in the Australian film Animal Kingdom (2010), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she made her Hollywood debut with the comedy The Five-Year Engagement (2012). For her next role, in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), she received her second Oscar nomination. Since then she has appeared in a host of US and Australian productions, among them the films Magic in the Moonlight (2014), Last Cab to Darwin (2015), The Disaster Artist (2017), Bird Box (2018), Widows (2018), Stage Mother (2020) and Penguin Bloom (2020); and the television series Blunt Talk (2015–2016), Secret City (2016–2019) and Bloom (2019–2020).
