Weisz began acting in stage and television productions in the early 1990s, and made her film debut in Death Machine (1994).

She won a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for her role in the 1994 revival of Noël Coward's play Design for Living, and went on to appear in the 1999 Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams' drama Suddenly Last Summer.

[5] Weisz went on to star in several films of the 2000s, including Enemy at the Gates (2001), About a Boy (2002), Runaway Jury (2003), Constantine (2005), The Fountain (2006), The Lovely Bones (2009) and The Whistleblower (2010).

[6] Weisz portrayed Melina Vostokoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Widow (2021) and starred as twin obstetricians in the thriller miniseries Dead Ringers (2023).

[21][22][23] Her parents immigrated to the United Kingdom as children around 1938, prior to the outbreak of World War II, in order to escape the Nazis.

[28] Weisz's parents valued the arts; they encouraged their children to form opinions of their own by engaging their participation in family debates.

During her university years she was a contemporary of Sacha Baron Cohen, Alexander Armstrong, Emily Maitlis, Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc, Richard Osman and Ben Miller (whom she briefly dated),[36] and appeared in various student dramatic productions, co-founding a student drama group called Cambridge Talking Tongues.

[37] The group won a Guardian Student Drama Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Festival Fringe for an improvised piece written by Weisz herself called Slight Possession,[38] directed by David Farr.

[39] In 1992, Weisz appeared in the television film Advocates II, followed by roles in the Inspector Morse episode "Twilight of the Gods", and the BBC's steamy period drama Scarlet and Black, alongside Ewan McGregor.

[41] Weisz's breakthrough role on the stage was that of Gilda in Sean Mathias's 1994 revival of Noël Coward's Design for Living at the Gielgud Theatre,[42][43] for which she received the London Critics' Circle Award for the most promising newcomer.

[34] Weisz found roles in the 1997 American drama Swept from the Sea,[51] the 1998 British television comedy-drama My Summer with Des, Michael Winterbottom's crime film I Want You,[52] and David Leland's The Land Girls, based on Angela Huth's book of the same name.

[58] Also in 1999, she played the role of Catherine in the Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer,[60] What's on Stage called her "captivating", stating that she brought "a degree of credibility to a difficult part".

[64] In 2000, she portrayed Petula in the film Beautiful Creatures,[40] followed by 2001's Enemy at the Gates,[65] and the 2002 comedy-drama About a Boy, with Hugh Grant, based on Nick Hornby's 1998 novel.

[72] Her next appearance, in 2005, was in Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener,[73] a film adaptation of a John le Carré thriller set in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya.

[89] In 2009, she played the lead role of Hypatia of Alexandria in the historical drama film Agora, a Spanish production directed by Alejandro Amenábar.

In 2017 Weisz starred in My Cousin Rachel, a drama based on Daphne du Maurier's novel, and in 2018 co-starred in a British biographical film about sailor Donald Crowhurst, The Mercy, directed by James Marsh.

In April 2019, she entered talks to join Scarlett Johansson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Widow.

[112][113] Weisz starred in and executive produced the thriller miniseries Dead Ringers, a remake of the 1988 film of the same name for Amazon Prime Video.

[117] In November 2010, Weisz and Aronofsky announced that they had been apart for months, but remained close friends and were committed to bringing up their son together in New York.

They began dating in December 2010 and married on 22 June 2011 in a private New York ceremony, with four guests in attendance, including Weisz's son and Craig's daughter.