Rachel Weisz reflects on stepping into the 4th century

When Rachel Weisz arrived on the island of Malta to film "Agora," she found herself in the middle of the fourth century.

It wasn't because the island nation was still living in the past, but because the past had been rebuilt. Using a huge chunk of the movie's $70 million budget, a full-scale replica of Alexandria had been built by production designer Guy Dyas (who did similar large-scale work on "Inception"). There would be no green-screen acting in "Agora, only a trip into history.

Weisz plays the philosopher/astronomer/mathematician/teacher Hypatia in the type of religious epic Cecil B. DeMille might have made if DeMille believed in skepticism more than spectacle.

Although little of Hypatia's writings have survived, Weisz said by phone from New York on Wednesday that "she was a magical teacher whose students ended up in positions of power."

Complicating matters further, those students ended up on opposite sides of authority - the church, the government - and they had crushes on her.

In addition to giving her a chance to bring to life a little-known historical figure, and a woman of great scientific importance, Weisz was attracted to the film because "it was a contemporary story set in 4th-century Alexandria."

While the film deals with religious intolerance (the Pagans hate the Christians, the Christians hate the Pagans, the Jews hate the Christians, the Christians hate the Jews and the Roman politicians have no idea what to do except cower), Weisz said Hypatia is "pro-reason and rationalism and tolerance."

She believes in questions, not answers.

" 'Agora's' small story is about a teacher and her students," Weisz said, but the bigger issue it raises is asking "why, when we should be so evolved, is there still so much 'My god is better than your god' intolerance?"

Regarding religion, Weisz is not anti-faith, but believes belief needs to be bombarded with doubt.

"I don't think the history of religion has no doubt," she said.

She added that "Agora," which means marketplace, sees planet Earth as a giant marketplace of ideas and cultures.

"Are we going to get along, or not?" she asked.

The versatile actress has two more finished films awaiting release, "Dream House," a thriller with Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts, and "The Whistleblower," the true story of a peacekeeper in Sarajevo who outed a sex scandal being covered up by the U.N.

Her next project is undecided but she hopes to soon shoot "Jackie," to be directed by her longtime beau Darren Aronofsky, about the life of Jackie Kennedy directly following the assassination of the president.