Hugo Weaving
A graduate of
Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art, blond,
idiosyncratic leading man Hugo Weaving made his feature
film debut in the socially conscious low-budget drama The City's Edge (1983), purportedly one of the first
Australian films to sympathetically portray the adverse
conditions suffered by aborigines. In 1991, Weaving
received Best Actor kudos from the Australian Film Institute for
his portrayal of a blind photographer in
Jocelyn Moorhouse's
Proof. In 1994, the actor earned international
acclaim playing Tick, a drag queen with a secret, in the
cult favorite
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
(1994). The following year, Weaving was involved in
another audience pleaser when he lent his voice to play the
sheep dog Rex in
Babe. Weaving occasionally appears in U.S.
television productions, notably the CBS miniseries
Dadah Is Death, in which he played opposite
Julie Christie and
Sarah Jessica Parker. He also continues to work
steadily in Australia, in addition to appearing in big-budget
Hollywood affairs such as
The Matrix, in which he starred as an evil agent
opposite
Keanu Reeves and
Laurence Fishburne. Following his turn in
The Matrix with a few low-key romantic comedies Strange
Planet [also 1999] and
Russian Doll [2001]), Weaving made a return to
big-budgeted special effects extravaganzas with his involvement
in director
Peter Jackson's enormous adaptation of author
J.R.R. Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings. For the sequels to
The Matrix, Weaving would return with a
vengeance; with hundreds of Agent Smith clones sent to
stop Neo (Keanu
Reeves) from leading the revolution against the machines
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