Hugo Weaving

Cafe Society
21

I like Weaving’s Elrond. I’m glad he’s not a Happy Little Elf. He brings gravity and intensity to the role, and I enjoy some of his rather idiosyncratic line readings, although I realize some people may not: Our list of allies grows THIN… But yoooou, my daughter…

I can also understand that people who have been playing this story in their heads for 10, 20, 30 or more years would have their own ideas of how each role should be played, and I think it would be impossible for any actor to satisfy all of them.

22

I also got her giggling with a reference to Elrond’s Purple gown and tiara …

23

Someone once gave me a link to a nice picture of “Elrond Smith…” it looked something like this

24

Thanks to telepwen, here it is.

25

Elrond is such a drak character to begin with. Being held prisioner, watching your mother seemingly commit suicide, at a young age and then being raised by your captors can’t have made life a bowl of cherries. Then to realize his parents were alive and yet forever separated from him? Top that off with watching his brother’s line fall from being great kings to wanders in the woods, and also for his wife to leave to return to Valinor after being attacked by orcs? Damn. Yet I have friends that though Hugo should have lightened up a bit.

26

The Voice is IT sometimes!

That’s one of the things that made Hopkins’s Hannibal Lectre so effective. In an interview, Hopkins said he based the voice on HAL, the computer in 2001: A Space Odessy.

And, come on, James Earl Jones as the Voice of Darth Vader! Sure the shiny black helmet, big black cape and David Prowse’s 6’7" make him big and intimidating, but the Voice: “Paauuh-hssst! Luke, I am your father! Paauuh-hsst!”

27

Hugo Weaving had an interview in (I think) Maxim or Stuff this past month. In it, he said the Agent Smith voice was his own creation - he wanted, apparently, a voice that was neither human nor robotic, just a cold, calculating in-between.

Good work, I’d say.

28

The girl I first saw “Star Wars” with, all these many years ago, told me about how she had read that the guy inside the Darth Vader suit didn’t have a good voice for the part, so they got “some big black guy” to do the Voice of Vader.

Sheesh. Granted, Jones was not as big in 1979 as he is today (uhh…metaphorically speaking :slight_smile: ), but still…to call one of the greatest actors of the day “some big black guy”? We didn’t stay together very long after that…

29

Yep.

I could quote Smith all day. But I do think that all the bad guys in the Matrix trilogy had excellent vocal inflections and memorable voices - even the vanilla Agents had a ghostly rhythm and quality about them. And I loved the Twins. And the Merovingian. And the Architect. And the original Oracle.
But you need all that flavor when the best you can get out of the hero is a dazed, “Whoa.”

30

Yes, there is. But for some reason, they don’t list Weaving.

Orlando Bloom is at #59; Hugo should be much higher than that.

31

Hee. My sister said that way you can tell the difference between the CGI neo and the Keanu Neo is that CGI Neo has a facial expression aside from confused.

32

Don’t forget, he was also the voice of the male dog in “Babe”.

33

But Judge Reinhold made the cut. Judge Reinhold???

I’d love to see a list like this adjusted for inflation and see Harrison Ford duke it out with Gable, Valentino, and Bogie.

34

I checked the site KGS linked and there was a link for “actresses” as well. The dollar totals were much smaller for the top actresses, as compared to actors.

And I was disappointed that the late Amelia Batchelor wasn’t #1, being that she’s appeared in every Columbia movie since 1936.

35

The-numbers has Weaving at 64. He is certainly a fine actor and is currently getting raves in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing for the Sydney Theatre Company. He appears in lots of odds and ends in Australia like comic films for the comedychannel. He once apparently starred in a student film - he was walking past while shopping and the schoolkids recognised him and he spent the weekend shooting their film. In a recent interview he said he only did the Matrix and LOTR so he could see himself as an action figure. The interview ended with the interviewer and Weaving debating whether Elrond could kick agent Smith’s butt.

And Proof and The Interview are essential viewing.

36

A different kinda role of Hugo Weaving can be found in Bangkok Hilton as well.

37

I watched all of Bedrooms and Hallways last night. I am glad I did not see that in the theatre, i would have been kicked out for laughing too loud, (I sqeak loudly when I laugh to hard) and missed a lot of the dialog as well. There were a lot of Tivo moments, pausing for laughter, to backing up to see stuff again. Hugo was great in it too.

38

I’ve had the privilege of seeing Hugo Weaving on the stage - he was Benedick in a Bell Shakespeare production of Much Ado About Nothing. I thought he was marvellous (this has to have been ten years ago when I was an impressionable youth) and went away from the theatre just a little in love with the way he played the character. I believe he’s a fine actor.