Rebecca Hall's Real Name: Rebecca Maria Hall

Quick answer: Rebecca Hall's full name is Rebecca Maria Hall. She was born on May 3, 1982, in London. Her father was the stage director Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and her mother was the opera singer Maria Ewing. She acts under her real name. Her films include The Prestige and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and she made her directing debut with Passing (2021) (Golden Globes; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

The Golden Globes' official profile opens with "Rebecca Maria Hall (born in London, England, May 3, 1982)." The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Hall, Rebecca, 1982-" and cites "actress, producer, director; Born: May 3, 1982 in London, England, UK." Maria, her middle name, is also her mother's first name.

In a 2021 essay for Vogue, Hall wrote that her mother was born in Detroit in 1950 and became an international opera star. Her father, Peter Hall, was the son of a Suffolk stationmaster and went on to found the Royal Shakespeare Company. She also wrote that her maternal grandfather passed for white, a family history she explored through Passing. "I am a Hall, of course," she wrote, "but I am equally a Ewing."

In a 2022 Cannes Film Festival interview, Hall said she first appeared on screen at nine in The Camomile Lawn (1992), a miniseries her father directed. He had been reluctant to cast her. She said her real dream was always to direct.

Career highlights

Hall worked in theater, often with her father, before her film break in 2006. She told Cannes that she sent Christopher Nolan a taped audition for The Prestige and was improvising a scene with Christian Bale the next day. In 2008 she starred with Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a musical or comedy.

The Golden Globes list her later roles in Frost/Nixon (2008), Please Give (2010), Ben Affleck's The Town (2010), and Transcendence (2014). They also list Spielberg's The BFG (2016), Christine (2016), and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017). In Christine she played the 1970s TV reporter Christine Chubbuck.

She wrote the script for Passing at 25 and spent eight years getting it made. She adapted it from Nella Larsen's 1929 novel and paused her acting career in 2021 to direct it. In 2022 she sat on the Cannes feature film jury.

Name notes for searchers

Rebecca is her first name, Maria her middle name, and Hall her father's surname.