Four Minutes with Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving with Sir Ian McKellan in The Hobbit. Picture: Warner Bros Pictures Source: National Features

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

The Australian Hobbit actor talks about maintaining the reality of the world of Middle-earth, working with Peter Jackson and the beautiful New Zealand culture.

1. WELCOME BACK TO RIVENDELL

It's hard to imagine Australians hitting the streets for a locally made movie like the Kiwis do whenever Peter Jackson ventures into Middle-earth. Aussie Hugo Weaving, aka elf lord Elrond, said the Wellington debut of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in November felt "more like a national holiday" than a movie premiere.

2. PARTY ON, BILBO

"Maybe they should have it as a national day every year," Weaving said at the premiere - well, with two more Hobbit movies to come this year and next, they probably will! "It feels like a country celebrating its own culture. The film presents New Zealand culture so beautifully, that's why people here love it so much."

3. THE INEVITABLE RETURN

"When I left on Lord of the Rings I said to Pete (Jackson, director), 'I'll see you on The Hobbit.' He said, 'I'm not doing The Hobbit.' He was exhausted, I think. Yet it felt inevitable that The Hobbit would be made and like it should have been made by Peter. So when I came back it felt like I'd just left a couple of days ago ... "

4. IAN McKELLEN WAVERED UNTIL HE ...

... pictured someone else as Gandalf. Weaving was of a similar mind. "It wouldn't be right for other people to do any of the roles. You want to maintain the reality of the world - if you can call Middle-earth 'real'. We all needed to come back."

-- SEE The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is now showing

A very merry affair for little Bilbo's big premiere

Bilbo Baggins's adventure will span three epic films / Pic: Warner Bros Source: Supplied

Elle Halliwell, The Daily Telegraph, reports

The celebrity set was in holiday mode at the Sydney premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last night.

With most having begun their Christmas break, there were more than a few glasses of wine taken into the two George St Event Cinema theatres screening the 3D Peter Jackson epic, which opens on Boxing Day.

Sophie Lowe, Lincoln Lewis, Stephanie Rice, Maude Garrett and George Houvardas walked the red carpet in place of the film's Aussie stars Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, who had already made an appearance at the film's world premiere in New Zealand.

"I thought it was great; it was really moving in parts but also funny and I was transported to a different world, which I love doing when I'm watching films," Lowe said.

Lewis said it was just one of the blockbusters he planned to see over the holidays. The Hobbit set a new record for a December release in its opening weekend, pulling in just shy of $100 million in the US as fans flocked to take in the prequel to the Lord Of The Rings saga.

Blanchett confirmed for Hobbit premiere

The Hobbit

Cate Blanchett returns ...

The Sydney Morning Herald reports

Australians Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Barry Humphries will all attend the world premiere of the first Hobbit movie in New Zealand next week.

Warner Bros has announced the stars who will attend the first screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in Wellington.

Blanchett plays Elf Queen Galadriel, Weaving plays Elf Lord Elrond and Humphries plays the Goblin King in the latest installment of the epic series.

Filmmakers Sir Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens will also be joined by Martin Freeman, who plays the central role of Bilbo Baggins; Richard Armitage, who stars as the dwarf warrior Thorin Oakenshield; Andy Serkis who plays Gollum and Elijah Wood who plays Frodo Baggins.

There may be a nearly 10-metre statue of Gandalf the Grey above Wellington's Embassy Theatre, but the actor who plays the character, Sir Ian McKellen, won't be there to see it for himself.

McKellen said he was sorry he could not attend. "I know they (the cast) will have a wonderful welcome from the fans and I envy them. As ever, my heart is in Wellington, and I send my love."

Wellington is spending $NZ1.1 million ($A871,943) on activities in the week of the premiere, temporarily calling itself "The Middle of Middle-earth".

The film is released globally on December 14 and in Australia on Boxing Day.

Transformer wars: Director Michael Bay tells Hugo Weaving to quit moaning

Michael Bay, left, didn't appreciate Hugo Weaving, right, dissing his Transformers films. Pictures: Paramount / Getty / News Ltd Source: Supplied

The Daily Telegraph reports

The chances of Hugo Weaving ever voicing a Transformer again are looking increasingly slim.

The Aussie actor has incurred the wrath of director Michael Bay for coming clean on what he thinks of the multi-billion-dollar movie franchise.

He told Collider earlier this week that he found the job of voicing Megatron, the main villain in all three Transformers films, "meaningless" and let slip that he never read the script or met the director.

Bay, who is known in the business for making very loud and very glossy effects-heavy movies (he calls it f***ing the frame) as well as for his lingering shots of Megan Fox's behind, shot back at Weaving on his blog.

"Do you ever get sick of actors that make $15 million a picture, or even $200,000 for voiceover work that took a brisk one hour and 43 minutes to complete, and then complain about their jobs? With all the problems facing our world today, do these grumbling thespians really think people reading the news actually care about trivial complaints that their job wasn’t 'artistic enough' or 'fulfilling enough'?

"What happened to people who had integrity, who did a job, got paid for their hard work, and just smiled afterward? Be happy you even have a job - let alone a job that pays you more than 98% of the people in America."

"I have a wonderful idea for all those whiners: They can give their 'unhappy job money' to a wonderful Elephant Rescue. It’s the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Africa. I will match the funds they donate."

The post was quickly deleted from his webpage but not before it went viral.

Weaving's interview is still up, though. He told Collider that his involvement in Transformers was minimal to say the least.

"It honestly was a two-hour voice job. It was one of the only things I’ve ever done where I had no knowledge of it, I didn’t care about it. In one way, I regret that bit. I don’t regret doing it, but I very rarely do something if it’s meaningless. It was meaningless to me, honestly. I don’t mean that in any nasty way," he said.

He said he never met Bay during his brief stint on the film, although he did see the director's face on Skype.

"I never read the script. I just have my lines, and I don’t know what they mean. That sounds absolutely pathetic! I've never done anything like that, in my life."

Weaving also had a go at Marvel, saying he would be reluctant to revive his role as the Red Skull in any future Captain America movies.

"I didn’t think I’d be in Captain America 2 or 3. I don’t think Red Skull will be there. And it’s not something I would want to do again. I’m glad I did it. I did sign up for a number of pictures and I suppose, contractually, I would be obliged to, if they forced me to, but they wouldn’t want to force someone to do it, if they didn’t want to. I think I’ve done my dash with that sort of film. It was good to do it and try it out, but to be honest, it’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by."

Weaving isn't the only Transformer actor to have had a go at Bay. Fox was reportedly fired from the third movie for comparing Bay to Hitler. Shia LaBeouf said the second Transformers movie sucked.

It's not known what Optimus Prime makes of all of this.

Hugo Weaving done with Marvel, says Transformers work was meaningless

Hugo Weaving was the face under the Red Skull's heavy latex and the voice of Megatron. Pictures: Maravel / Paramount Pictures Source: Supplied

The Daily Telegraph reports

While out promoting his new film, the time-hopping epic Cloud Atlas, Hugo Weaving opened up about the harsh realities of making blockbusters.

Weaving, whose deadpan Agent Smith in The Matrix made him Hollywood's new go-to-guy for all things sinister, told Collider.com that his involvement in the hugely successful Transformers films was meaningless.

He also revealed why he'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the Marvel Universe.

Weaving was the voice of Megatron in Transformers, and the two sequels that followed. The films, which were directed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg made more than two-and-half billion dollars at the box office but Weaving's involvement was minimal to say the least.

"It honestly was a two-hour voice job. It was one of the only things I’ve ever done where I had no knowledge of it, I didn’t care about it. In one way, I regret that bit. I don’t regret doing it, but I very rarely do something if it’s meaningless. It was meaningless to me, honestly. I don’t mean that in any nasty way," he said.

Weaving never met Bay during his very extremely brief stint on the film, although he did see his face on Skype.

"I never read the script. I just have my lines, and I don’t know what they mean. That sounds absolutely pathetic! I've never done anything like that, in my life."

Cartoon villainy doesn't appear to be Weaving's bag, with the actor telling Collider that he would be reluctant to go against Captain America again.

Weaving, who played the Red Skull in last year's Captain America: The First Avenger, said: "I didn’t think I’d be in Captain America 2 or 3. I don’t think Red Skull will be there. And it’s not something I would want to do again. I’m glad I did it. I did sign up for a number of pictures and I suppose, contractually, I would be obliged to, if they forced me to, but they wouldn’t want to force someone to do it, if they didn’t want to."

He adds: "I think I’ve done my dash with that sort of film. It was good to do it and try it out, but to be honest, it’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by."

Weaving's back in drag, but it's no Priscilla

Cloud Atlas stars Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon, pictured at the Toronto International Film Festival. Photo: Getty Images

 

Ed Gibbs, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

The world premiere of Cloud Atlas met with a mixed reception, but its star Hugo Weaving isn't fazed.

It was greeted with a lengthy standing ovation, then just as quickly slammed by critics, following its world premiere at the Toronto International Festival on Sunday night.

Cloud Atlas - the Booker-shortlisted, multi-layered novel that many believed impossible to turn into a film - even has Hugo Weaving donning a women's fat suit.

Yet the controversial film - a sprawling, multi-story tale of karmic repercussions throughout time and space - also offers its all-star cast, including Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, the chance to have fun and ''play dress-ups'', as actor Jim Broadbent puts it, with its cast playing multiple characters that bizarrely jump gender, race and age.

For Hugo Weaving, Cloud Atlas offered the chance to re-team with two of the film's three directors, the Wachowski brothers: the duo responsible for The Matrix movies that made him a star. Ten years on, much has changed, though - notably Larry Wachowski, who has since become Lana.

''I don't think it's ironic at all,'' Weaving says, of the gender-swapping roles the film's cast has to perform. ''I think there are certain things that Larry - now Lana - is interested in. A lot of them connect up with his - now her - journey. This feeling of being trapped inside a body since the age of nine, feeling like, 'I'm not this person, I'm actually that person', I guess whoever we are, there are certain things that we want to express.

''When I first worked with them, in The Matrix days, they'd finish each other's sentences, or talk together. They're incredibly tight-knit. Now, they're more individual, I guess.''

Their new film, co-directed with Run Lola Run's Tom Tykwer, takes the viewer on a lengthy, troubled journey, from the South Pacific of the 18th century through to a post-apocalyptic future rife with warring factions and cannibalism. Weaving's other characters in the film include a Machiavellian figure named Georgie and Bill Smoke, an authority figure reminiscent of his Agent Smith character in The Matrix. Playing a nurse, though, was more extreme than even he could have imagined.

''The prosthetics came in at a very late stage, so I spent a lot of time in my fat suit just trying to get used to it,'' Weaving says of Nurse Noakes, a fearsomely full figure far removed from Mitzi Del Bra, his drag persona in Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert. ''Whenever I look at it, I'm still uneasy about it.''

Weaving joins a substantial number of Australians in Toronto, where local cinema has been enjoying its biggest showing in years. The event - the single largest gateway to the lucrative US market - has premiered Cate Shortland's Lore and Tony Krawitz's Dead Europe to great acclaim, in addition to Wayne Blair's musical smash The Sapphires, the big-wave documentary Storm Surfers 3D and Robert Connolly's Julian Assange biopic Underground. Catriona McKenzie's indigenous drama Satellite Boy has rounded out what festival programmer Jane Schoettle describes as Australia's ''splashiest'' showing to date at the event, now in its 37th year and second only to Cannes for market dominance and star-pulling power.

Cloud Atlas, meanwhile, will have a release in Australia early next year, and joins a string of films that have generated Oscar buzz at the festival - an event that provides early indicators for award favourites. Among the most notable is Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines, which stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper as a pair of troubled fathers, and features an excellent performance by Australia's Ben Mendelsohn.

The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival runs until September 16.

Weaver in fast lane with Lois short film

Jacki Weaver. Photo: Getty Images

Suzanne Carbone, The Age, reports

Jacki Weaver, the actor who proves that being a mature-age woman isn't a hindrance to Hollywood acclaim, can't put a foot wrong. She is starring in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Uncle Vanya in New York with Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh, with critics hailing the cast as ''uniformly brilliant''.

Far from turning up her nose at smaller projects after winning international acclaim for her role in Animal Kingdom, Weaver plays the lead role in a short film called Lois - and, to be precise, it's eight minutes long. Written, produced and directed by Alexandra Schepisi, daughter of Fred Schepisi, the film is the shortest of the shorts screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival's ''Australian Shorts'' program.

With runny mascara smudged under Weaver's eyes for the film's poster, the scene is set for Lois to be ''tipped over the edge'' after receiving a letter. Weaver won't be at Russell Street's Greater Union cinema on August 11 for the screening because she will be in the US filming Labor Day, a drama starring luminaries Tobey Maguire, Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. Schepisi will have her day of labour because she's expecting her first child with husband Jeremy Rouse.

Hugo Weaving opens up about epilepsy

Had epilepsy as a teen ... Actor Hugo Weaving attends the Uncle Vanya cast photocall in New York City. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph reports

Australian actor Hugo Weaving has revealed he suffered from epilepsy during his teen years.

The star of movies such as The Matrix and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, told the New York Post that it started when he was 13.

"I probably had one major seizure a year. Every now and then I'd fall down and wake up to someone saying, 'Are you OK?', but it never affected any jobs I was doing.

"It started at 13, and I figured if I grew into it, I could grow out of it. I don't drive as a result, because I couldn't get my licence," said the 52-year-old actor.

Although Weaving has not had a seizure in 18 years, he says he couldn't be bothered getting his licence.

"Now I could, but I can't be bothered. It's easier to walk. At least, that's my excuse, anyway."

Weaving and fellow Aussie Cate Blanchett are taking New York by storm with the Sydney Theatre Company's production of the much-praised Uncle Vanya, which is running through to Saturday at the Lincoln Center Festival.

Epilepsy is a disorder of brain function that takes the form of recurring convulsive or non -convulsive seizures, according to the Epilepsy Australia website.

Wake with a difference at Sydney's The Hellfire Club

Back when the Hellfire Club was located at the site of the former Blackmarket Café in Chippendale, it appared in the movie The Matrix starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving. In the particular scene, Keanu Reeves follows the white rabbit and meets Carrie-Anne Moss for the very first time at a dance club in this building.

Back then, the Hellfire Club would host bondage nights where leather-clad patrons equipped with whips, ropes and hot wax let their imagination run wild. In 1997, several members of the Bandidos gang were gunned down in the basement by two members of the Rebels bikie gang. It took two years to shut the place down. The building has since become a café furniture showroom.

The Hellfire Club, now relocated to Oxford Street, gets a mention in the article below. There’s more information on the original club and its role in The Matrix in the fourth volume of Sydney on Screen: Where Heroes & Monsters Play available for purchase here:

www.sydneyonscreen.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/sydney-on-screen-where-heroes-monsters.html

Annette Sharp in the mask she wore to The Hellfire Club, Oxford Street, Sydney. Picture: Justin Lloyd Source: The Daily Telegraph

Annette Sharp, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Perhaps I should have Googled The Hellfire Club's dress code before accepting a friend's invitation to visit the once notorious venue for his recently departed mother's send-off.

Knowing his exuberant tastes, it came as little surprise when, after serving as full-time carer to his beloved mum for the last decade of her life, he chose a non-traditional venue for her mourning party.

At 49 and single, he had earned it - so why not at The Hellfire Club? I had visited Sydney's premiere S&M venue just once before - some 17 years earlier while on a couples' night out proposed by an impossibly curious Bass Player I know.

Back then it was located at the Blackmarket Cafe in Chippendale - the memory of the foreboding site lingers to this day.

The entrance of the purple gothic-styled haunt was filled with dozens of menacing bikers. Inside, along with the bikers who would become synonymous with the place in 1997 when two Bandidos were shot dead, was a sweaty throng of Irish backpackers.

And in every other corner was a pasty-faced middle-aged man in a soiled polyester suit - travelling solo for cheap thrills.

On a torture rack centre stage was a woman in enormous white Bonds cottontail underpants, beige pantyhose and bra, being stung with a riding crop wielded by the venue's famed bondage master Tom - in leather chaps and mask.

I have been called naive many times in my life but the benchmark was set that night when I took the impish Bass Player's advice concerning Hellfire Club dress code.

Back then there was no way to Google the club which, like a sort of sordid Brigadoon, comes to life only one night a month ... at midnight.

So I took his "come in bondage gear" invitation as any Pollyanna-on-the-prowl might - enthusiastically. Encouraged by assurances his wife would be wearing "leather lace-up corset', I improvised hotpants, heels, stockings, strategically placed trouser-braces and leather jacket. I thought I'd done rather a decent job until we met that ruinous Bass Player and his wife in Chippendale and I found, to my abject and shirt-less horror, she was dressed in a floral Laura Ashley dress!

The rest of the night was spent fending off Master Tom's advances - my outfit oily burley to the dungeon master, who saw it as a sign I was rack-ready.

So last weekend, almost 20 years on, I was not going to make the same mistake - and pulled on skivvy and skirt under a large woollen overcoat.

These days the Hellfire Club has found a perfect home on Oxford St where the clientele are more high-minded, better groomed and most assiduously not packing.

The years have been good to Master Tom, aka Craig Donarski the promoter, now twice the man he once was. Although the modern dress code states "no effort, no entry" and rules the minimum dress code is a G-string, Satan's Bass Player, sensing an opportunity, arrived with leather masks for all to ensure admittance.

These days Hellfire is a bit like Disneyland for mums and dads at a fraction of the cost. There are large animal characters - a lifesize panda was at one point ravished by a stripper who ended her performance ripping off his head - fabulous fetish costumes, pool tables, nude body-painting and, of course, the rack - which these days is used by chubby couples who spank each other and make up before spanking each other all over again.

After the Bass Player's wife and I observed such a demonstration (played to Cold Chisel's Breakfast At Sweethearts), I made a visit to the ladies room where a young woman, shocked by what I was wearing, implored me to shed.

"I have to take it all off!" she entreated.

Grateful I had taken my mother's childhood advice and was wearing my trusty cold-weather singlet, I obliged, swapping skivvy for singie.

My husband by this time was chatting with the dungeon master. Concerned he was about to be evicted for failing to wear a loincloth, I joined them and was stunned to find he and Master Tom were having a reunion - they were once kindergarten pals at Fairy Meadow Demonstration School on the South Coast. RIP Mrs A.

Weaving's second chance at seducing the audience

French connection ... Hugo Weaving and Angela Punch-McGregor in Nimrod's 1987 production.

Elissa Blake, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

A role as meaty as the arch seducer Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses doesn't come up often. When it does, you grab it.

Hugo Weaving considers himself fortunate to have performed it once, in Richard Cottrell's production for Nimrod Theatre in 1987 at the Seymour Centre. To get a second crack is lucky indeed. The only problem, Weaving says, is you don't get to choose when you play it.

"I was much too young, really, first time around," Weaving says. "I was 27. Now I feel like I'm too old."

Weaving, 51, imagines Valmont to be about 40. "Over the hill," he says, a mite ruefully. "But back then, I was just too young to feel like a man who's become bored with himself. He feels there must be something more to life. At 27, I could understand that intellectually but I couldn't feel like that."

Revisiting the role in the Sydney Theatre Company's new production, Weaving recognises Valmont as a man who has arrived at a point where he knows something must change.

"He probably - unconsciously - would like to be in love with someone and just settle down and live in the country. But he would never admit that," he says. "He would hate to lose his reputation as the great seducer, the great lover of all women, and so he's in a bind."

For the company's production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which opens on Thursday, the director Sam Strong has worked on a contemporary feel. It's not set in 1782, when Choderlos de Laclos wrote the original novel, or in an identifiable present, Weaving says. "It's a timeless now, if you like, though you get a sense of elegance and wealth - European wealth, old money, I suppose - in the set and costumes."

One of the challenges in rehearsal has been addressing the tone of Christopher Hampton's script.

"The way in which Valmont seduces in 1782 and the way he would do it now, has to be very different," Weaving says.

"You have to play it less front-on. I don't think the passionate professions of love that Hampton's written - like 'falling to his knees and grasping her hand and kissing her hand', which puts you into corset land a bit - can work today. There are at least three women in the play he's seducing and they all require a different sort of energy and a different sort of attack."

Les Liaisons Dangereuses opened at Wharf 1 on Thursday.