Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving

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Biography

Hugo Weaving (born 4.4.1960)

Hugo Weaving is an English-Australian actor, possibly best known for his role as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy and for playing Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Childhood: Hugo Weaving was born in Ibadan, Nigeria to Anne and Wallace Weaving. His mother is a tour guide and a former teacher and his father is a seismologist. When Hugo was around a year old, the family moved to England, where they lived in Bedford and Brighton. They later relocated to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, followed by a move to Johannesburg in South Africa.

Whilst he lived in England, Weaving attended Queen Elizabeth's Hospital boarding school. In 1981, whilst in Australia, he graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art.

Acting Career: Hugo Weaving's first major acting role came in 1984, in the Australian TV series Bodyline, playing the English cricket captain Douglas Jardine. He also appeared in the miniseries The Dirtwater Dynasty in 1988. The following year, he starred opposite Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton.

Hugo Weaving won the Best Actor award at the Australian Film Institute, for his performance in the low-budget film Proof, which also featured Russell Crowe.

Two years later, he also played the role of Sir John in the comedy Reckless Kelly.

The first taste of international success for Hugo Weaving came with Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, in 1994. The global hit comedy also starred Guy Pearce and Terence Stamp.

In 1998, Weaving's performance in The Interview earned him the Best Actor award at the Montreal Film Festival. His professional stature grew further with his role in the 1999 blockbuster film The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Ann Moss. The role was reprised in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Hugo Weaving then also landed a role in Peter Jackson's big-screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Also starring in the films were Sir Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean.

Hugo Weaving then landed the lead in the 2004 film Everything Goes, with Abbie Cornish. The following year, he starred in the independent Australian film, Little Fish, alongside Cate Blanchett. Then, in 2006, Weaving took the title role in V for Vendetta.

When Michael Bay directed the 2007 live-action remake of Transformers, he chose to use Hugo Weaving's voice for the Decepticon leader Megatron, rather than using the original version of the character's voice, created by the actor Frank Welker.

Weaving then went on to star alongside Benicio del Toro in The Wolfman and when filming had finished, he headed home to Australia to take a role in Last Ride, directed by Guillermo del Toro.

In 2010, Hugo Weaving took on another high profile voice role; this time in Legend of the Guardians, a computer-animated fantasy/adventure which also featured the voices of such actors as Anthony LaPaglia, Helen Mirren, Miriam Margoyles and Geoffrey Rush.

Personal Life: At the age of 13, Hugo Weaving was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Weaving is married to Katrina Greenwood and they have two children together, Harry (b. 1989) and Holly (b. 1993).

As the primary ambassador of Australian animal rights charity Voiceless, Hugo Weaving attends events and promotes the charity through interviews.



Biography by Contactmusic.com

Hacksaw Ridge Review

Excellent

Based on an astounding true story, this battlefield drama mixes warm emotion with intense action to pull the audience in from a variety of angles. The result is powerfully visceral, catching us by surprise as it scares, moves and inspires us. As a director, Mel Gibson is great at telling vivid stories that evoke intense feelings. And Andrew Garfield delivers another remarkably internalised performance that resonates strongly.

As World War II rages, Desmond (Garfield) longs to leave his rural Virginia home to help with the fighting against Germany and Japan. But as an Adventist, he refuses to touch a weapon or fight on Sunday. He enlists anyway, and is mercilessly bullied for his pacifistic beliefs all the way through boot camp. His commanding officers (Vince Vaughn and Sam Worthington) are especially hard on him, trying to force him to drop out. But his haggard WWI-veteran father (Hugo Weaving) makes a pointed plea for him to remain in the military. Eventually, his platoon is sent to fight on Hacksaw Ridge in Okinawa, where Desmond proves his bravery in ways no one expects.

This is one of those stories that we wouldn't believe if it weren't true (the film concludes with a documentary epilogue featuring interviews with the actual people). Gibson and his screenwriters continually ground scenes in tiny details that emphasise the realism, giving the actors plenty of gristle. The opening sequence on the farm is relentlessly corny Americana, with Garfield portraying a dorky bumpkin who falls for a sweet girl (Teresa Palmer) and heads naively off to war. But Garfield deepens the character with every scene, giving weight and meaning to the jaw-dropping climactic battlefield sequence. Among the supporting cast, Vaughn, Worthington and Weaving all get strong moments of their own, as do a few of Desmond's comrades. Although while Palmer and Griffiths (as Desmond's mother) are solid, there isn't much for them to do.

Continue reading: Hacksaw Ridge Review

Hacksaw Ridge - Trailer and Clips


In 1919 Desmond Doss was born, he lived a quiet life and always wanted to become a doctor and also had ambitions to marry his sweetheart, Dorothy. As the World War II continued to spread terror around the world, Doss knew he must play his part and serve his country with his fellow man. For religious and ethical reasons, Doss had always been a pacifist and never believed in hurting another man and joined the forces as a medic in the hopes of saving the lives of injured soldiers.

When he arrived for training, resources were so tight that all medics were made to train in armed combat, there was no other option but to pick up a weapon and begin training like everyone else on the base. Unable to falter from his convictions, Doss's superiors were soon involved in the situation and Doss fought for his beliefs and was officially named a conscientious objector;  that also made him a target for the other recruits who came to nickname him a coward.

As their initial battle day approached, the men didn't look toward Doss as one of their own, more as just another potential body going into a losing battle. The whole regiment found themselves being bombarded by powerful blasts from bombs and guns and somehow Doss survived, but not only did he survive, he went on to pull a number of men away from the front line and save them from certain death.

Continue: Hacksaw Ridge - Trailer and Clips

A Week In Movies: Tribeca Wraps In New York, 'Madding Crowd' And 'D Train' Hold US Premieres, A New Trailer Drops For 'Mad Max', And There Are First Looks At 'Legend', 'Black Mass' And 'Strangerland'


Martin Scorsese Robert De Niro Ray Liotta Lorraine Bracco Carey Mulligan Michael Sheen Jack Black James Marsden George Miller Tom Hardy Charlize Theron Johnny Depp Joel Edgerton Kevin Bacon Dakota Johnson Nicole Kidman Hugo Weaving

The Tribeca Film Festival in New York wrapped up at the weekend with a 25th anniversary screening of Martin Scorsese's 'GoodFellas', which featured a reunion of the film's actors including Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, Paul Sorvino, Debbie Mazar, Lorraine Bracco, Kevin Corrigan and Mike Starr. Take a look at pictures from the closing of The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival here.

Paul Sorvino, Debi Mazar, Robert De Niro, Lorraine Bracco and Kevin CorriganPaul Sorvino, Debi Mazar, Robert De Niro, Lorraine Bracco and Kevin Corrigan

Also in New York, the US premiere of 'Far From the Madding Crowd' brought out stars Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Juno Temple and director Thomas Vinterberg, plus other celebrities including Kathleen Turner and Sarah Silverman. The film opens this weekend in both the UK and US. Check out pictures from the premiere of 'Far From the Madding Crowd' here. 

Continue reading: A Week In Movies: Tribeca Wraps In New York, 'Madding Crowd' And 'D Train' Hold US Premieres, A New Trailer Drops For 'Mad Max', And There Are First Looks At 'Legend', 'Black Mass' And 'Strangerland'

Strangerland Trailer


In the small Australian town of Nathgari, the Parker family are trying to adjust to their new life. Catherine (Nicole Kidman) and Matthew (Joseph Fiennes) keep to themselves most of the time, but when their teenage children, Tommy (Nicholas Hamilton) and Lilly (Maddison Brown) disappear into the desert, their lives are changed forever. When a search is begun by one of the town's policemen David Rae (Hugo Weaving), the Parkers join in. And when a terrible dust storm spreads across the town, the locals begin to blame the Parkers for meddling in ancient Aboriginal traditions. As the summer comes and the heat begins to rise, the Parkers are forced to clear their name while they might still have a chance to save their children.

Continue: Strangerland Trailer

The Turning Trailer


In 2005, Australian author Tim Winton collected a series of 17 short stories and published them under the title 'The Turning'. The stories revolve around the character Vic Lang (Dougie Baldwin, Richard Roxburgh, Josh McConville, Casey Douglas and Dan Wyllie), with themes involving companionship, sentimentality and drug abuse. The book received multiple awards for the stories, and went on to become a part of the Western Australian English curriculum in schools. In 2013, the book was turned into a movie, nominated for numerous awards at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.  

Continue: The Turning Trailer

The Turning Review


Excellent

Life-changing moments feature in each of the nine short films in this Australian anthology, and each is told with remarkable artistry and sensitivity. While the filmmakers use different styles of filmmaking, there's a clever connection between the shorts, as themes of inner longing are made resonant by earthy honesty. So even if each brief segment film feels like just a fragment of an idea, taken together the film is remarkably moving.

It opens and closes with the animated "Ash Wednesday", using the T.S. Elliot poem to explore the idea of communal memory. From here a variety of mini-stories unfurl, often using the same character names even though the films are dramas, comedies or documentaries, and many have no dialogue at all. The lighter clips include "Reunion", in which a couple (Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh) are surprised that spending Christmas with his mum isn't as awful as expected. "Cockleshell" follows a young guy (Toby Wallace) who's obsessed with the girl (Brenna Harding) next door. And both "Big World" and "Boner McPharlin's Moll" take lively kaleidoscopic looks at how reality is often nothing like our idea of how things should be.

Other segments are dark and provocative, including "Aquifer", about a man (Callan Mulvey) who is pushed by a news headline to recall a painful childhood memory. Two young boys (Jakory and Jarli-Russell Blanco) have a creepy adventure while on a beach day out with their dad and uncles in "Sand". The most moving film is "Commission", in which a young man (Josh McConville) drives to the outback to tell his estranged dad (Hugo Weaving) that his mother is dying. The best performance comes from Rose Byrne in the eponymous "The Turning", as a trailer-trash wife and mother whose friendship with a rich woman (Miranda Otto) sparks a religious epiphany. And the most unforgettable short is "Long, Clear View", impressively directed by Mia Wasikowska, which follows a young boy (Matthew Shanley) playing with his dad's rifle.

Continue reading: The Turning Review

The Mule Review


Good

A strong undercurrent of Aussie black humour helps make this revolting story just about palatable, although the solid cast struggles to make the idiotic characters very likeable. The film owes a lot to the Coen Brothers' classic Fargo, as a group of people make ridiculous decisions that lead to pain, conflict and death in a situation so complex that no one has a clue what's really going on. There are some very funny moments, but the filmmakers' real goal is to gross the audience out. And that they do.

Based on a true story from 1983 Melbourne, the film centres on Ray (Angus Sampson), a geeky TV repairman who wins the annual prize in his local football club and suddenly finds himself invited to the cool parties with the team captain, his childhood friend Gavin (Leigh Whannell). The club's president Pat (John Noble) wants Gavin to travel to Bangkok to collect a shipment of heroin, and Gavin talks Ray into doing the job, swallowing 20 heroin-filled pods. When Ray panics on reentering Australia, he's picked up by federal agents Croft and Paris (Hugo Weaving and Ewen Leslie) and held for seven days in a hotel room. But Gavin refuses to move his bowel, confounding them. Meanwhile, Pat is on a rampage trying to find his missing drugs and make sure Ray doesn't spill the beans, as it were.

Yes, this is literally an anal-retentive story, told with bone-dry wit by a group of filmmakers that includes actors Sampson and Whannell (who play ghostbusters Tucker and Specs in the Insidious movies). The film moves at a surprisingly slow pace, never building up much energy but keeping everything luridly trashy as these chucklehead characters flail pointlessly against everything that goes against them. Each person thinks they're in control, but no one is. And only the underused women are truly likeable: Georgina Haig as Ray's sassy-savvy public defender and Noni Hazlehurst as his increasingly frazzled mother.

Continue reading: The Mule Review

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Trailer


The Lonely Mountain has been reclaimed from the dragon Smaug. The dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) have won; although they soon discover that the price of their victory was steep. Smaug has laid waste to Lake Town, leaving the residents homeless after Thorin promised them riches. The elves of Mirkwood seek the dwarves that escaped their dungeons, while an army of orcs seek to end the line of Durin. And behind the scenes, a dark lord of shadow, long since defeated, is preparing to make a return to Middle Earth - the secret to his power lies in a small, golden ring. A ring that has chosen a new owner; The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). 

'The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies' serves as the final chapter in Academy Award winning director Peter Jackson's Middle Earth saga. The film serves as the sixth film by Jackson to be based on the works of writer J. R. R. Tolkien, and the final part of 'The Hobbit' trilogy. When Tolkien released 'The Hobbit' in 1937, it was a single book. Jackson released the final part of his adaptation of 'Lord of the Rings' in 2003, and stated that he would not work on a 'Hobbit' movie. However, he eventually signed on to direct a two part adaptation of 'The Hobbit', which later turned into a trilogy in 2012. 

The film is due to be released on 12th December, 2014 in the UK, with a US release date of 17th December.

Mystery Road Review


Very Good

This tightly wound drama evokes a strikingly inventive sense of the Wild West in the Australian Outback. Since filmmaker Ivan Sen refuses to crank up even a hint of suspense, he cleverly subverts the usual cliches, refusing to indulge in action-movie exaggeration. But this leaves the film feeling very sleepy, depending on audiences to connect with the central character's internal voyage rather than anything that happens on-screen.

The focus is on Jay (Aaron Pederson), a beefy police detective who moves back home to rural Queensland after several years as a cop in the big city. He's a local boy in this dusty Outback town, but now he's also considered an outsider. His first case involves the murder of a young Aboriginal girl who seems to have been part of a drugs and prostitution ring. This sparks an extra level of concern for Jay because his estranged teen daughter knew the victim. And as Jay digs into the case, he begins to understand that there's a dark criminal element woven right into the fabric of the community. It's so endemic that the last policeman who tried to investigate it turned up dead.

This is an exploration of the dark layers of bigotry and evil that worm their way into any group of people, often far beneath the seemingly peaceful surface. Intriguingly, the film isn't actually about the murder; it's about Jay's journey to discover his own personal history, how his past connects with a present he can barely bring himself to imagine. Pederson is a magnetic presence at the centre of the story as a man dealing with rather a lot of abuse while trying to help solve a nasty situation and understand his own place in this world. Around him the supporting cast add colour to each scene, with notable contributions from the superb Hugo Weaving, Aussie veteran Jack Thompson and True Blood's Ryan Kwanten.

Continue reading: Mystery Road Review

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies - Teaser Trailer


Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and the mini-army of dwarves led by Thorin are facing an evermore deadly path in their pursuit of the Lonely Mountain and its mound of treasure which was stolen from the dwarves some time ago by the fiercesome dragon Smaug. Their attempt to slay him has failed, instead unleashing further horrors upon themselves. Angering the dragon has only made things worse with him now determined to murder every creature that lies in its path, demolishing a neighbouring village with little more than a breath. Gandalf remains captured and tensions are ever rising between not only friends, but elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins and it's clear that the  deadliest, brutalist war for thousands of years is well on its way.

Continue: The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies - Teaser Trailer

Hugo Weaving - Tuesday 9th February 2010 at Arclight Cineramadome Los Angeles, California

Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving Friday 7th March 2008 leaving his hotel today London, England

Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving - Monday 3rd December 2007 at Sydney Opera House Sydney, Australia

Hugo Weaving
Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving Quick Links

News Pictures Video Film RSS

Hugo Weaving

Date of birth

4th April, 1960

Occupation

Actor

Sex

Male

Height

1.88


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Hugo Weaving Movies

Hacksaw Ridge Movie Review

Hacksaw Ridge Movie Review

Based on an astounding true story, this battlefield drama mixes warm emotion with intense action...

Hacksaw Ridge Trailer

Hacksaw Ridge Trailer

In 1919 Desmond Doss was born, he lived a quiet life and always wanted to...

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The Dressmaker Trailer

The Dressmaker Trailer

When Myrtle (Tilly) was little, she lived a happy life, along with her mother in...

Strangerland Trailer

Strangerland Trailer

In the small Australian town of Nathgari, the Parker family are trying to adjust to...

The Turning Trailer

The Turning Trailer

In 2005, Australian author Tim Winton collected a series of 17 short stories and published...

The Turning Movie Review

The Turning Movie Review

Life-changing moments feature in each of the nine short films in this Australian anthology, and...

The Mule Movie Review

The Mule Movie Review

A strong undercurrent of Aussie black humour helps make this revolting story just about palatable,...

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Trailer

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Trailer

The Lonely Mountain has been reclaimed from the dragon Smaug. The dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield...

Mystery Road Movie Review

Mystery Road Movie Review

This tightly wound drama evokes a strikingly inventive sense of the Wild West in the...

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Trailer

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Trailer

Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and the mini-army of dwarves led by Thorin are facing an evermore...

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer

Bilbo Baggins has narrowly escaped several deadly confrontations with the likes of trolls, stone giants...

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer

Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and their company thirteen dwarves have managed to leave the Misty Mountains...

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