Rachel Weisz loved turning 40

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Rachel Weisz

Rachel Weisz says turning 40 was one of the "best years" of her life.

The 42-year-old actress didn't mind reaching the milestone age because she married James Bond star Daniel Craig in 2011, and took on more "interesting" and "complicated" characters on both the stage and the big screen.

She said: "When I turned 40 it was one of the best years of my life; I played Blanche in 'A Streetcar Named Desire', Hester Collyer in 'The Deep Blue Sea' and got married - none of which I'd ever done before. As you age the characters you play get more interesting, more complicated."

Rachel portrays scheming Wicked Witch of the East Evanora in 'Oz the Great and Powerful' - a prequel to 1939 movie 'The Wizard of Oz' - and she admits part of her reasoning for taking on the part was because her alter-ego is "entirely different" to the "emotional characters" she tends to play.

She added in an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "It's impossible to define what makes me want to do a script; there's no formula.

"I just knew I'd been playing earth-bound, emotional characters and this was entirely different and I'm always greedy for new experiences. 'The Wizard of Oz' was the first film I remember seeing and I was really, really scared, but then fairy tales are supposed to help children explore the concepts of good and evil, even if they are peeping out from behind a chair in terror."