Press & Updates

Hugo Weaving is used to play authoritative characters in his films — whether those characters are heroes, villains or somewhere in between. The Australia-based actor first gained international fame as a drag queen the 1994 dramedy film "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and later as the menacing Agent Smith in "The Matrix" sci-fi films. He is also the character of Elrond (one of the rulers of Middle-Earth) in the epic "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" films.

In the horror film "The Wolfman" (the 2010 remake of 1941’s "The Wolf Man"), Weaving plays Francis Aberline, the Scotland Yard inspector who heads the investigation into mysterious murders in Victorian-era Great Britain. Many of the citizens believe a werewolf is to blame for the deaths, but Aberline thinks werewolves are mythical creatures. Little does he know that actor Lawrence Talbot (played by Benicio Del Toro) has recently returned to his family estate and has a secret. At the Los Angeles press junket for "The Wolfman," Weaving talked about his interpretation of the Aberline character, how it compares to Agent Smith, and what people can expect from him in his 2010 animated flick "Guardians of Ga’Hoole."

The ending of "The Wolfman" leaves open the possibility of a sequel. Would you do the sequel if it happens?

I don’t know if there will be a sequel. And I would choose to do anything based on a script and the people involved with that script. So for me, the first point of departure as an actor is responding to a script. And if that script hasn’t been written yet, I can’t answer that question.

Hugo Weaving in "The Wolfman"

How much input did you have in the look of your Aberline character?

Aberline, as you know, is based pretty loosely on Inspector [Frederick] Abberline, who was heading up [the investigation of] the Whitechapel murders in 1889, which became known as the Jack the Ripper murders. So I thought I’d do a little bit of a research into the real man to see if there is anything pertinent about him can be anything pertinent about him to be used in the film. There was a little bit, but not a great deal.

The most important thing abut using Aberline in this film is that immediately in the viewer’s mind, you start thinking about London streets and that whole horror that was Jack the Ripper. It adds that little bit of flavor. But the one thing I did take from the real Inspector Aberline was the muttonchop whiskers which [were] based on a sketch that I’d seen of him. That was my input into the visual character.

Lot of inspector characters in movies are caricatures. Is there anything you do to make Aberline distinctive from similar characters?

I wasn’t really thinking about making him distinct from other [characters]. He’s a type. He’s a very distinctive type, and that’s something you can enjoy, I think. For instance, where Aberline walks into the tavern was, for me, a very funny scene on the page. You’re surrounded by suspicious villagers who believe in werewolves, and you’re a very circumspect man of rational thought. So for me, that’s an enjoyable thing to savor.

Hugo Weaving in "The Wolfman"

The Wolf Man character is part of Universal Pictures’ legacy. How do you feel about being part of that legacy?

I never really though of that, to be honest. Unlike Benicio [Del Toro] having grown up seeing all of these films, I would’ve seen them in my childhood, but they didn’t have the sort of impact on me because I didn’t see them all at that particular time. But in terms of being part of a legacy, it’s something I’m probably not really aware of [in the same way] as Benicio and possibly a lot of other people.

But I think retelling this story was a great idea. And setting it in Victorian London was a really great idea. It’s a master stroke. It’s a much more evocative period than the original film. And probably the original film now, from my point of view, from my perspective, is a funny old movie. I mean, I can’t really take it seriously. I think it was ripe to be revisited in a classic way and set in that period.

Hugo Weaving in "The Wolfman"

Even though Aberline is the force of good, audiences might see him as the villain if they are sympathetic to the Wolf Man character. Did that affect the way you approached playing the character?

I don’t think about things [like that]. Unless you’re playing the villain and he’s obviously the villain, it’s part of the job description, I tend not to see characters as good or evil. I just think, "What is it that they’re trying to do?"

And in one way, if you look at Lawrence Talbot and [Francis] Aberline, if you look at the inner torment of Benicio’s character, Benicio [as Lawrence Talbot] is fighting himself, and so is Aberline. So they’re fighting the same thing; they just don’t know it. His struggle is an internal one, with his own demons and his own passions and his own desires. And Aberline’s is much more rational: "Who perpetrated these murders and how are we going to catch the murderer?" I never saw it as them being on opposite sides, really.

It’s set up in the initial meeting that Aberline, being a detective, is going to suspect the brother of the murdered heir to the family estate, of course, because he’s the most likely suspect. But beyond that, I never really saw them as being in opposition to each other. That’s an interesting thing about the genre: that a man is in opposition to himself. And that’s what makes Benicio’s character interesting and painful and tragic: It’s an internal struggle. To what extent are we civilized and to what extent are we animals who’ve become civilized? There’s an interesting sort of battle going on in all of us because we are civilized but because we are also animals.

Hugo Weaving in "The Matrix Reloaded"

At the Warner Bros. studio museum in California, there’s a display of "The Matrix" and your "Matrix" character is on display as a statue. Have you seen it?

No, I saw enough of those reproductions on set to last a lifetime, I think. No, I haven’t been to that studio for quite a while, so I haven’t seen those statues, but I would’ve seen the original ones.

In many ways, the first "Matrix" film was a departure for me, in terms of the choice of the films that I had been making. I still, by and large, make low-budget Australian films. So these big-budget, mostly American-backed films are, for me, kind of a lot of fun to do. It enables me to work on a completely different scale. "The Matrix" was certainly the first film that I’d done that had that kind of exposure.

You’ve done movies that were science fiction, fantasy and horror. What have you found interesting about working in these three genres?

Science fiction, particularly, the strength of that genre is a way of looking at who we are now by generally putting us in a future environment … For instance, in "V for Vendetta," you’re actually talking about now, even though you’re referencing the 1940s and you’re referencing a future world, you’re talking about fascism and you’re talking about state control. You’re talking about things we’re always interested in.

I think all these genres have a particular strength to them because they’re actually deeply interested in very basic human considerations. And this horror genre, particularly with the werewolf, is to do with that thing I was talking about: To what extent are we civilized? To what extent can we suppress our instincts and how do we control those things? They also talk about deep-seated fears that we might hold as individuals.

And [the] fantasy [genre] as well. When you’re in a more fantastic film, they can highlight certain things about who we are now. If a film isn’t really talking about who we are and what our psychologies are, then we’re probably not that interested in it, actually. We’re probably interested our own natures. They [horror, science fiction and fantasy genres] all have a similarity even though the structures of them are quite different.

Hugo Weaving in "The Wolfman"

Your mannerisms for Aberline seemed to be a lot like your Agent Smith character in "The Matrix." Was that a conscious similarity?

It probably reminded you because it’s the same actor. I certainly didn’t think abut that. One was an English detective, and the other one was a strangely constructed I don’t know where he was from. Maybe you’re talking about the style?

There was something very stoic about those characters.

Yeah, there’s a deliberate nature to both if those characters. That’s certainly true. I think Smith is much more controlling, probably. And actually Smith has something in common with Benicio’s character: He’s being overtaken by human feelings that he doesn’t want to have to deal with. But Aberline, no, I thought he was an English copper.

Now that you’ve done several films with a lot of special effects and CGI, does it get easier for you?

[For "The Wolfman"], I was always on location or on a set that was so fantastic that it seemed like I was on location anyway. I was always working with other actors. And so there wasn’t a great suspension of disbelief I had to make. I didn’t find it particularly hard. The most CGI I’ve ever done was on "The Matrix," and again, there wasn’t very much on that. There were amazing sets and we were working with other actors on training.

But if I did have to do a lot of green screen in a film, I would find that very wearying. I don’t enjoy that particularly. It’s a technical requirement. It’s something you have to do, but it’s not why you kind of sign up to be an actor in the first place. There are elements you need to revisit. I would much prefer to be on location or on set. With this film ["The Wolfman"], we were, really, all the time. So it was harder for Benicio from time to time, I would say.

Hugo Weaving in "The Wolfman"

You’ve played a lot of characters whose look and costumes for the character are extremely important. Is that a transformative experience for you or is it just all about portraying what’s in the script?

I think any role you need to play not so much transforms but I like to think of it as understanding the psychology of another character. I suppose I’m not really talking about this film as such, but acting in general. And so a transformation maybe takes place over a period of time, diminishing your own characteristics and sort of augmenting the characteristics you see in someone else. And then visual impact of the character will come with the decisions you’ve made about the way in which they might look. It might have to do with facial hair or costume or whatever. But yeah, I enjoy trying to understand what makes people tick, and transformation is always a part of that.

You have a role in Zack Snyder’s animated film "Guardians of Ga’Hoole," which is due out later in 2010. Will we recognize your voice? What does your voice sound like in that movie?

There’s a couple of characters [I play I the movie], actually. It was great working with Zack … It’s a long process doing a voice in an animated film. The animators require that the voices get put down first. You get timing. They also will shoot you so the animators can animate certain thought processes, I suppose. It was a great experience.

Those two characters: one is a narrator figure and the other one is a conflicted owl who’s working as a jailer, if you like, of other owls, and he’s working under sort of duress. And he does something where he kind of sacrifices his own life. One of them sounds like an Australian junkie. The other one sounds a little bit like my voice.

Hugo Weaving in "The Wolfman"

What do you remember about shooting your action scenes in "The Wolfman"? And why were there reshoots of "The Wolfman," which caused the delay of the film’s release?

For me, it was mostly running around cobbled streets of London at night, so I got very sore feet. The main purpose of the reshoots was to beef up, as far as I understand, the werewolf chase action sequences. But there were a few scenes that were reshot as well which I wasn’t involved in which weren’t to do with that. It was a process of a few weeks in London last year.

What were any particular challenges that you had in the chase scenes?

Probably the biggest challenge for me in a way is playing a character who is so rational and so circumspect and absolutely does not believe in werewolves — because who does? — and yet has to witness the transformation of a man into a wolf. That’s a challenge for the character and the actor.

Luckily, the film is propelled — once Aberline sees that transformation of Talbot turning into this wolf — into this sequence of action, which is one of the things we had to reshoot. And so there’s no time for either the character or the audience to have too many thoughts about it. You just kind of have to follow the action as you go along. I think that’s probably the hardest thing. Well, what do you do when you’re confronted with something like that? You can’t think abut it.

Hugo Weaving at the Los Angeles premiere of "The Wolfman"

What’s next for you?

I think "The Hobbit" is being filmed this year, [he says coyly] but I don’t know. And there’s a production of "Uncle Vanya," a Chekov play, in Sydney at the end of the year. Cate Blanchett is the artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, and I work there quite a lot. And we’re involved in a production with a wonderful cast and a Hungarian theater director. And that’s what I’ll be doing toward the end of the year. Between now and then though, I suspect "The Hobbit" might rear its head. But other than that, I’ll be concentrating on steering my daughter through her final year of school.

Are you sworn to secrecy about "The Hobbit" movie?

I haven’t talked to anyone about "The Hobbit." I’d love to.