Weaving is an Australian-British film and stage actor. He is best known for his roles as Agent Smith in The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) and Elrond in The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) film trilogy, as well as the title role of V in the 2006 film V for Vendetta.
His first major role was in the 1984 Australian television series Bodyline, as the English cricket captain Douglas Jardine. He first rose to prominence for his performance as Martin in the Australian drama Proof (1991). Other notable works include Tickin the comedy-drama The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994); Red Skull in the superhero film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and multiple roles in the science fiction film Cloud Atlas (2012). He has also provided the voice Rex in Babe, Noah in Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two and Megatron in the Transformers film series, as well as starred in multiple Australian character dramas.
He has received many accolades in his career, including a Satellite Award, MTV Movie Award and several Australian Film Institute Awards.
Early Life
Weaving was born at the University of Ibadan Teaching Hospital, Nigeria Protectorate, to English parents Anne, a tour guide and former teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. A year after his birth, his family returned to England, living in Bedford and Brighton before moving to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia; Johannesburg in South Africa; and then returning to England again.
While in England, he attended The Downs School, Wraxall, near Bristol, and Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital. His family moved back to Australia in 1976, where he atended Knox Grammar School in Sydney. He graduated from Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981.
Career
Weaving’s first major role was in the 1984 Australian television series Bodyline, as the English cricket captain Douglas Jardine. Weaving appeared in the Australian miniseries The Dirtwater Dynasty in 1988 and as Geoffrey Chambers in the drama Barlow and Chambers: A Long Way From Home. He starred opposite Nicole Kidman in the 1989 film Bangkok Hilton. In 1991, Weaving received the Australian Film Institute’s «Best Actor» award for his performance in the low-budgetProof. He appeared as Sir John in the 1993 Yahoo Serious comedy Reckless Kelly, a lampoon of Australian outlaw Ned Kelly.
Weaving first received international attention in the hit Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994, and provided the voice of Rex the sheepdog and farm leader in the 1995 family film, Babe. In 1998, he received the «Best Actor» award from the Montreal Film Festival for his performance as a suspected serial killer in The Interview.
Weaving earned further international attention with his performance as the enigmatic Agent Smith in the 1999 blockbuster hit The Matrix. He later reprised that role in the film’s 2003 sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. He was a voice actor in the cartoon filmThe Magic Pudding.
He garnered additional acclaim in the role of Elrond in Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, released between 2001 and 2003. Weaving was the main actor in Andrew Kotatko’s award-winning film Everything Goes (2004). He starred as a heroin-addicted ex-rugby league player in the 2005 Australian indie film Little Fish, opposite Cate Blanchett.
In 2006, he worked with Cate Blanchett on a reprise of the STC production of Hedd Gabler in New York City.
On 13 March 2011, The Key Man, which Weaving filmed in 2006, finally debuted at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. The child migrant saga Oranges and Sunshine opened in the UK on 1 April, the culmination of months of success on the festival circuit in late 2010-early 2011. In March, the Sydney Theatre Company and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that STC’s 2010 production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya would be reprised in Washington, D.C. during the month of August. He was part of the cast of the Wachowskis’ adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas.
2012 also found Weaving re-focusing on his theatrical career, with a well-received return to the Sydney Theatre Company to star in a new adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s play Les Liaisons Dangereuses in March. He portrayed the notorious Vicomte de Valmont, a character he first played onstage in 1987. His frequent stage foil Pamela Rabe costarred. Weaving and Cate Blanchett reprised their roles in STC’s internationally lauded production of Uncle Vanya for a ten-day run at New York’s Lincoln Center in July.
Personal Life
When he was 13 years old, Weaving was diagnosed with epilepsy. He has been with his longtime girlfriend Katrina Greenwood since 1984 and the two live in Sydney and have two children together, Harry and Holly. He has a brother, Simon, and a sister, Anna Jane. His niece, Samara Weaving, portrayed Indigo Walker on the long-running Australian soap, Home and Away, and her younger sister Morgan joined the cast as Lottie Ryan.
In 2004, Weaving became an ambassador for Australian animal rights organisationVoiceless, the animal protection institute. He attends events, promotes Voiceless in interviews, and assists in their judging of annual grants recipients.
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