We're paid too much!

Life's tough for Rachel Weisz. The 32-year-old actress has appeared in a string of multimillion-pound movies opposite some of the hottest actors in the business, and has just moved from London to New York to be closer to her director boyfriend. But today she admits success has its downside - getting paid too much.

She believes Hollywood's finest are demanding far too much money for their work.

"I think it [pay] is a little out of control," she says. "It's bad for actors. They feel they can't take less than their quote because they think it won't look good. And it puts such pressure on the movie."

Weisz herself reportedly earned more than a £1 million for starring in The Mummy Returns in 2001, making her one of Britain's highest-paid actresses.

Admittedly that is small beer compared with Julia Roberts, who earns more than £15million a picture, but with a string of highprofile films on the cards Weisz will hardly go hungry - even given her self-proclaimed lack of financial nous.

In an interview in this month's Harpers and Queen, she says: "I haven't invested. I've done nothing sensible. I don't understand investing in stocks - I don't have a clue. That would mean developing a whole new faculty that would take me away from my work."

Weisz does seem rather canny, however, when it comes to her career.
She followed up the Mummy films with starring roles opposite Jude Law in Enemy At The Gates and Hugh Grant in About A Boy, and there's no sign of a lull - she's pencilled-in for four films in the next 12 months - Envy, Runaway Jury, She Died On Canvas and Marlowe.

Yet her new flat is above a shop, and she tells the magazine one of the nicest things about being famous is getting a 30 per cent discount from designers.

Speaking as her next film - Confidence, in which she plays a con woman opposite Dustin Hoffman - is released, Weisz also talks about her love of men with "direction" - perhaps the reason why she's dated Oscar-winner Sam Mendes (now married to Kate Winslet) and is now living with another director, Darren Aronofsky.

Weisz - brought up in Hampstead - says: "I'm definitely drawn to people who have a strong sense of direction - a purpose." She admits however that dating actors can be tricky: "Your neuroses and insecurities are probably similar - the need to get on that stage and be laughed at and adored."

And on the subject of being direct, moving from Primrose Hill to New York has made her just that. She says: "In England it can be embarrassing to be ambitious. "Here [New York] I've had to learn to be much more direct and to say what I want. You can't go winding around.

"You can't say, 'Would you mind awfully if I could possibly borrow that thing that I mentioned before, but don't worry if you don't want to.' It's far better just to go, 'I want this.'"

The full interview appears in Harpers and Queen, out today.