Fame comes in threes

Perhaps nothing speaks so squarely to an actor’s range than for a worldwide audience to embrace you as slitheringly evil in one blockbuster trilogy and magisterially wise and compassionate in another -- pretty much at the same time. This holiday season, 43-year-old Sydney-based actor Hugo Weaving can be seen concluding his characterizations of human-crushing virus Agent Smith in “The Matrix Revolutions� and elf king Elrond in “The Return of the King.� But before the franchise train rolled into town, Weaving was handily impressing audiences Down Under, winning the first of two Australian Film Institute awards as a blind man opposite fellow countryman Russell Crowe in the drama “Proof,� and first securing international recognition as a disco-loving drag queen in the hit comedy “The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.�

You’re in two of the most popular trilogies in recent years. Although they both were shot in your backyard -- “The Matrix� in Australia and the “Rings� movies in New Zealand -- how different were they in terms of time commitment?

They were quite different. “Matrix� seemed much denser, since the shoots of “Revolutions� and “Reloaded� took us about two years, whereas for “Lord of the Rings� I was popping over to New Zealand for two weeks here, three weeks there, a month here, over a period of three years.

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How did you arrive at Agent Smith’s demonically articulate vocal delivery?

I was keen to make him not human and not robotic, just unsettling and strange. I thought it should be a voice that’s not really located in any particular place in the world, with the sort of delivery a ‘60s newsreader might have. In other words, he’s saying words that mean something to you, but it’s presentational rather than conversational.

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You trained for nearly a year to meet the physical demands of the “Matrix� movies. Any memorable injury stories?

My favorite moment as a result of injury was being conscious during an operation when they were drilling a hole into my hip. That was absolutely fascinating! I was watching this operation, then watching it on the screen, and there was this strange country-and-western music playing. I was high on some sort of drug. Then I went home, ate too many Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and when the drugs wore off I found myself alone in a hotel room feeling really dreadful, crawled to the bathroom and vomited all over the place. That was a bizarre day.

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What do your children think of you as Elrond and Agent Smith?

Holly, who’s 10, really adores “The Lord of the Rings,� and Harry, who’s 14, is more interested in “The Matrix.� But Holly was much more keen on Orlando Bloom than poor old Elrond. I’m just her dad, you know.

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How did your recent films stack up against donning drag every day for “The Adventures of Priscilla�?

[Laughs] Agent Smith, he’s just got to stand in this stupid suit and glasses. Elrond did have pointy ears and long hair and essentially had long dresses on, but there’s no flamboyance to Elrond. When the character starts to inhabit my own physicality and changing it, that’s when it becomes really exciting.

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Hollywood has been poaching a number of actors from Down Under of late. Where do your ambitions lie?

It’s a small industry here, so you get to a certain level and it’s pretty hard to find work that challenges you. I’ve made a decision to stay and work [in Australia] as much as I can, but lots of others have decided, “Well, I’ve got to keep on growing, and I want to go to where I perceive the epicenter of world cinema to be.� But the first thing I did after “Matrix� and “Lord of the Rings� was a piece of TV down in Melbourne about three brothers, and it was a wonderful script. A small crew, working fast. It was a wonderful experience to jump from those huge-budget things to working in a much more intimate way.

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-- Robert Abele