Hugo Weaving

... not, not Evey.

Uh, Evey is the, the, you know, main character, the audience surrogate, but I'm, I'm talking of course of V, um, the, the character V, uh, who was played by Hugo Weaving, voiced by Hugo Weaving, but also played by other people, uh-

Mm

... other, other actors.

And, you know, uh, uh, I think after the first week or so, I started to realize that James was uncomfortable in that situation, right? So it came to pass that, um, you know, we let James go, right? Um, just because it didn't feel like it was gonna, uh, get any better.

Mm-hmm.

And then at the time, you know, I knew Hugo Weaving, you know, from the Australian film industry, but I knew him from all the Matrix movies, and, um, it came to be that I called him and said, "Hey, could you s- could you, would you step into the role?" And he said, "Yes.

Send me the script." I sent him the script.

Josh also really loves the Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which began with The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring just a month and three days after Harry Potter cast a spell over the world.

Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's 1954 book The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the Lord of the Rings book, the December 19, 2001 release stars Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, the late Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Sean Austin, John Rhys-Davis, Billy Boyd, the late Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, and Andy Serkis.

Set in Middle-earth, it focuses on young meek hobbit Frodo Baggins who has to travel with eight companions to take the powerful evil One-Wren of the Dark Lord Sauron to Mount Doom to destroy it before Sauron finds it again to return to power.

According to its Wikipedia page, it grossed $868 million worldwide during its original theatrical run, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2001 and the fifth highest grossing film of all time at the time of its release.

listening to Thursday Night's Arena.

For generations of film lovers, Hugo Weaving is instantly recognisable.

Whether that's delivering ice-cold terror as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, commanding the outback in Pink Chiffon in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, or playing ruthless anti-heroes, like Harkness in Apple TV's Slow Horses.

Irish audiences will also know him for his phenomenal work made here, hunting deserters through the bleak famine landscape of Lance Daly's Black 47 and dominating the stage at Dublin's Gate Theatre in the blistering production of Thomas Bernhard's The President, in which he starred alongside his friend and collaborator Alwyn Foray.

Now, the Australian actor steps into the manic home of an international transit terminal as a man running from his own past while trying to solve everyone else's crises in The Airport Chaplain, a project which came in a roundabout way through his Irish connections, as we'll hear.

Sinead Egan recently caught up with Hugo Weaving to talk about The Airport Chaplain, which is currently available on Netflix.

Before we hear that conversation, let's have a listen to Hugo in action as Tobias.

Tobias Wallace, Airport

of

thing but I did really enjoy it and again a little bit of history that I suppose doesn't really get a lot of recognition recognition is that what you would call it there's not really much talk how the people of those islands were treated by the Nazis so I thought it was really interesting and I'll run through the rest I watched Ready or Not 2 which I thoroughly enjoyed it definitely I don't think it was as good as the first one but I thought the kills were brilliant and really inventive as well and plenty to keep you sort of engaged in the end I love the fact that they sort of reconditioned the wedding dress as well because obviously that's so iconic and so she was running that all kind of bloodstained and then then she got given this big black one which I thought was equally fabulous so I really really enjoyed that I thought uh Samara Weaving was brilliant and I only just realized that she is Hugo Weaving's niece I don't know how that didn't occur to me before like

there's

also no sort of striking family resemblance but yeah I didn't realize that she falls under the category of a nepo baby as well

What is it about?

It's about an old guy played by Hugo Weaving.

who is really good.

And then something happens and you wonder, they keep you wondering whether he cheated on his wife of 40 years.

think he is the big boss of the show.

I mean, he has such presence, right? Anytime he's on the screen and that's all to the credit of Hugo Weaving.

I mean, he's so good.

But yeah, you definitely get the sense that maybe River can at least have a little bit more of an edge going up against him.

And I hope we get to see a little bit more of that dynamic between the two of them play out.

You

don't hire like Hugo Weaving

to

think he is the big boss of the show.

I mean, he has such presence, right? Anytime he's on the screen and that's all to the credit of Hugo Weaving.

I mean, he's so good.

But yeah, you definitely get the sense that maybe River can at least have a little bit more of an edge going up against him.

And I hope we get to see a little bit more of that dynamic between the two of them play out.

You

don't hire like Hugo Weaving

to