Hugo Weaving: One hell of a bodice ripper

WITH his worn leather jacket, dyed jet-black hair and hand-rolled cigarette, Hugo Weaving could pass for your run-of-the-mill struggling actor, or at least a run-of-the-mill struggling actor who was happy that he had, at last, landed a gig to die for.

He's not, of course. He's one of Australia's best known actors the lip-synching drag queen in Priscilla, Eddie Fleming in The Interview opposite Tony Martin, the evil Douglas Jardine, captain of the English team who ordered his players to bowl straight at Don Bradman's body, in Bodyline.
Weaving is used to straddling worlds so why not 17th century England, and a Jacobean tragedy, The White Devil, by John Webster.
After all, Weaving's career has of late, taken him to the jungles of French Guyana, where last year he filmed Rolf de Heer's The Old Man Who Read Love Stories, with Richard Dreyfuss, to the South Island of New Zealand, where he has been filming the Lord Of The Rings. And to LA of course where The Matrix 2 has put him on the ''Let's do lunch list''.

''It's self-perpetuating, the way films are cast and green-lit, it's actually a hideous industry [in that respect],'' said Weaving. ''If someone has been in a successful film that has made a lot of money, then they're kind of snaffled up to be in the next one ... it's not necessarily to do with who's perfect for the roles.''
Nor necessarily, for Weaving at least, the most satisfying of jobs.
''I've found that the last few things I've done have been big budget films and I sit around so much waiting ... I feel like I'm being paid too much to do too little,'' he said.
''The shoot might be six months and really you can shoot all your stuff in a couple of weeks, it's months of sitting around.
''Occasionally, you go in and you're working really hard and it's fantastic but most of it is sitting around until you're called. I like to really work or have a break.''

It's been four years since Weaving was on stage. He was last seen in The Alchemist, at Belvoir Street Theatre, with his mate, Geoffrey Rush, in 1996. And he is thrilled to be back.
''This is working with wonderful people and on such a great script it feels like I'm actually working.''

The White Devil has a large, quality cast Angie Milliken, Jeremy Sims and Julia Blake among others, and a director, Gale Edwards, who worked in commercial theatre on Broadway and the West End, with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in opera.
''Gale's experience would help enormously," said Weaving of Edwards, with whom he last worked on Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in 1994.
''It's knowing what works as spectacle, knowing how the ride works, how the ride evolves.''

This ride involves a fair bit of bodice ripping, blood and guts and murder: if you thought the final episodes of Melrose Place were something, wait till you get your head around The White Devil. Weaving plays Brachiano, a very-married Duke who falls for the very-married Vittoria (Angie Milliken).
''He's a bit of a hero-villain,' said Weaving of Brachiano. ''He's presented as the lover, then moves into very different territory you see him with his wife being quite brutal.
''[Writer John] Webster tends to present characters in a very uncompromising way you don't get all the edges ironed out. One character in is many things, all the different facets of their personality are in different scenes.
''I think it's quite a challenge to make it a homogenous character but, at the same time, not iron out all those differences.''

''It's the story of a male world challenged by a woman and by love,'' Edwards said.
''The Jacobean theatre is a world of very powerful men, beyond the law. Vittoria chooses Brachiano which is deeply challenging to the men around her.''

After The White Devil, Weaving has to finish work on Lord Of The Rings.
''They're doing three films at once so it means you're jumping from one to three to two and there are four crews working on them non-stop.''
He then jets off to LA to start training for the second instalment of The Matrix.
''We train in LA and then shoot mostly here, with a bit of a shoot in San Francisco,'' Weaving said. Beyond that, there are no plans.
''My life just kind of trips along.''

SUCH an easygoing attitude serves Weaving well in the precarious world of show business, where it can be chauffeur-driven limos one week and waiting on tables the next.
Weaving is unimpressed with the trappings of fame. For they are just that, he said. Trappings.
''One of the positive aspects from my point of view in terms of lifestyle doing film is that I can say `Well, I'm now going to have three months where I'm just going to hang out and be with the family'.

''And yes, you like the money and the offers come in but I don't think I know any actor who really, truly likes that glittery life.
''I think there's a lot of stress involved if you're up there. Which I think is why Keanu (Reeves) tries to be as normal as he can and likes to dag out and wander around town and escape his minders.
''He's trying to balance himself into a normal being again. The only thing is he's not, because he can't be. So it's a bit of a bind.
''It's difficult because you're an unreal, created being when you're someone like Keanu, you're not allowed to be normal. It's very difficult for anybody to approach you.
''They see you and they go, 'Oh my God, Keanu Reeves', and they project a million and one things onto you.
''It's very hard for Keanu to cope with that because he didn't create it, it's just been created around him. He's obviously the centre of it but he's still just a guy.''

The White Devil, adapted by Gale Edwards is a co-production between the Sydney Theatre Company and The Olympic Arts Festival. It opens on August 18 and runs until September 13 at the Theatre Royal.
 
 

Web Weaving
Hugo Weaving Interviews