| Hugo Weaving!! |
'Having agreed to play Elrond,' says Hugo Weaving, ' I realized how much had to be worked out about this character: the idea of portraying someone who is immortal, for on thing: plus that fact that he is noble, wise, powerful, good - and beautiful! I began to think that he was altogether impossible to play!'
Although it was the role of the humanoid, Agent Smith, in the merican special-effect bonaza, The Matrix, that brought Hugo Weaving international fame, he was already well - established in his homeland, Australia. On leaving school he trained at the national Institute of Dramatic arts and, within a few years, was cast in a TV mini series, Bodylin, playing the central role of the controlversial British cricketer, Douglas Jardine.
Weaving's television career contiued with Bangkok Hilton, starring alongside Nicole Kidman. In addition to his TV work and a number of challenging stage roles, Weaving was giving award-winning performance in a string of acclaimed films.
Proof, the story of a blind man who insists on taking photographs as 'proof' that the world is as others describe it to him, won him the Australian Film Institute 'Best Actor Award', as did his performance in The intervirw. This acclaimed movie about a man undergoing a gruelling police interrogation also won Weaving a Film Critics Circle of Australia nomination and the Best Actor Award at the World filmFestival in Montreal.
Waeving received a further AFI nomination for Best Actot for his portrayal of the drag-artise, Mitzi,in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Teetering on teelve-inch high stilettos, Weaving ans his co-stars Guy Pearce and Terence Stamp won the hearts of cinema-goers in Australia and Europe and, whilst Hollywood remade Pricilla, Queen of the desert. Teetering on twelve-inch high stilettos, Weaving and his co-starts Guy Pearce and Terance Stamp won the hearts of cinema-goers in Australia and Europe and, whilst Hollywood remade Pricilla with American 'names', audiences in the United States were soon to discover Weaving's acting talents when he assumed the role of Keanu Reeves' nemesis in The matrix. The executive producer of The Matrix was barrie Osborne who went on to become producer of The Lord Of Ther Rings Trilogy.
Returning to the difficulties of playing an Elf with immortality, Hugo Weaving says 'Elrond is a fount of knowledge and wisdom: he knows a great deal about the history of the Ring and understands not just what has happened, but when might happen. Elrond is well aware that whether the Ring is destroyed or taken by Sauron, the time of the elves is almost at an end. Whatever the outcome, the Elves will leave Middle-earth and be forgotten. There is, therefore, a sadness about Elrond which made me decide that - although he is an elf - he also needed to have humanity, and that is what I have tried to bring to my performance.' |
 |
 |
 |
 |