Rachel Weisz juggles, unicycles, raps through "The Brothers Bloom"

CEBU, Philippines – Rachel Weisz greatly expanded her list of useful talents for the con man romp “The Brothers Bloom.”

The Academy Award winner for “The Constant Gardener” plays a rich recluse with lots of time to fill, a woman who loads up on every hobby and talent imaginable.

“I had to learn to look like I could play violin, piano, banjo, guitar. Unicycle, juggle. I had to learn to do a card trick, a really complicated one. That was me doing that card trick, it was one shot. Rap, skateboard, Pingpong. It was a lot of stuff,” Weisz said in an interview at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival, where “The Brothers Bloom” premiered.

“I had two weeks to learn all the hobbies, apart from the card trick, and that was a month that I had to practice every single day.”

In “The Brothers Bloom,” which opens in theaters Friday, she also shows off a blithe and bonny side audiences do not necessarily associate with Weisz, whose supporting-actress Oscar came for a sobering role as an activist murdered amid corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.

Weisz’s Penelope Stamp is a lonely heiress longing for adventure and finding it in the company of the Bloom siblings (Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo), con men who take her on a globe-trotting journey and discover their latest mark is more baggage than they bargained for.

“What comes across here that we maybe have not seen in some of her other movies is the lighter, more childlike side of Rachel,” Ruffalo said. “She’s a little gullible. She has this childlike wonder at times with the way she listens to you.”

A comic tale with serious undertones, “The Brothers Bloom” is laced with whimsical trappings but needed serious actors such as Weisz to give it weight, said writer-director Rian Johnson.

“One-legged cats, drunk camels, steamer ships. It has all the levity built into it,” Johnson said. “With the actors you pick, you have to ground all that. You have to bring the heart. You have to bring real people. You have to see something behind their eyes. Otherwise, the whole thing will just float away like a giant balloon. It seemed really important to me not to cast comic actors but to cast really good actors who could do comedy.”

Next up for Weisz is Alejandro Amenabar’s “Agora,” a saga set in ancient Egypt that premieres Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival. Late this year, Weisz stars in “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones,” adapted from the novel about a slain girl watching over her family from the afterlife.

Weisz, 38, who starred with Brendan Fraser in the first two movies of “The Mummy” franchise, turned down a chance to reprise the role in last year’s third installment. Having just shot “The Brothers Bloom” in Eastern Europe, Weisz said she could not take on another long location shoot given that she and husband-to-be Darren Aronofsky had an infant son.

After starring in Aronofsky’s 2006 sci-fi romance “The Fountain,” Weisz said she hopes to work again with him, who also directed last year’s “The Wrestler” and 2000’s “Requiem for a Dream.”

Weisz also has a strong interest in dramas rooted in real life.

“Kind of like Meryl Streep in ‘Silkwood,’” Weisz said. “I’d like to tell stories about women who really existed, who did something extraordinary, who stood up against whatever, all the powers that be. Tales of brave people who have done more interesting things with their life than me.” (AP)