The Flinders News

August 14, 2008

 

He is an AFI award winning actor who has been in some huge Hollywood films inclduing The Matrix trilogy, and lent his voice to Babe, Happy Feet and Transformers, but last week Hugo Weaving was in Quorn filming another Australian drama called Last Ride.

It is the scripts that draw Mr Weaving to most of the movies he has been part of during his 27-year career, although occasionally it has been the director that has got him in.

In the case of Last Ride it is a bit of both. Last Ride is director Glendyn Ivin’s first full length feature film.

“I had seen Glendyn’s short film and I absolutely loved that,” Mr Weaving said.

“And when this script arrived with a note from Antonia (producer Antonia Barnard) and Glendyn, I rang Antonia back straight away and said I would love to do it.”

Hugo Weaving’s character in Last Ride is Kev, father of 10-year-old Chook, played by Tom Russell, and the two venture into the wide open spaces on the run from the police.

Mr Weaving says he would not choose to hang out with Kev – “I understand him and I empathise with him but he is not a particularly warm or likeable character.”

It has been an intensive shoot for both Weaving and Russell, who are in most of the scenes, but that is the way Weaving prefers it.

“I find I can get into a good rhythm although it’s rather tiring, but I would rather work five or six days a week than two days a week,” Mr Weaving said.

This six-week period of six days a week comes straight after four months in London for The Wolfman, where he was working two days a week, so he will have been away from partner Katrina and their two teenagers for almost half the year, which is unusual for the actor who has called Sydney home since 1976.

He plans to be at home for the rest of the year.

Mr Weaving said he found it difficult being apart from his family.

“It’s rare that I’m away for more than seven or eight weeks.”

But he is enjoying this shoot, and has always enjoyed the ‘family’ that cast and crew form while filming low-budget Australian films.

“We are having a great time, and it’s a blessing that we are in such a lovely physical environment and I think you guys are really lucky to live here,” he said.

“I think Quorn’s beautiful, it’s a beautiful place,” said Mr Weaving, “it’s got a spirit to it that you feel as soon as you arrive, it doesn’t feel like a dead town. We’ve been really lucky to be here and people have been incredibly friendly.”

And we have been incredibly lucky to have them.