People

Hugo Weaving

Acting · follow into films and chains

Biography

Hugo Wallace Weaving AO (born 4 April 1960) is an English actor. Born in Colonial Nigeria to English parents, he has resided in Australia for the entirety of his career. He is the recipient of six Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (AACTA) and has also been recognised as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia. Weaving landed his first major role as English cricket captain Douglas Jardine on the Australian television series Bodyline (1984). Continuing to act in Australia, he rose to prominence with his appearances in the films Proof (1991) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), winning his first AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role with the former. By the turn of the millennium, Weaving achieved international recognition through appearances in mainstream American productions. His most notable film roles include Agent Smith in the first three The Matrix films (1999–2003), Elrond in The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) trilogies, the title character in V for Vendetta (2005), and Johann Schmidt / Red Skull in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). In addition to his live action appearances, Weaving has had several voice over roles, including in the films Babe (1995), Happy Feet (2006) and Happy Feet Two (2011), and the Transformers series as Megatron (2007–2011). He also reprised his roles of Agent Smith and Elrond in Matrix and Lord of the Rings video game adaptations.

Notable films

Where to start

Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

As Elrond

The Matrix

As Agent Smith

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Cloud Atlas

Appears in a KinoChain journey

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

As Elrond

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

As Elrond

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

As Elrond

Patrick Melrose

As David Melrose

Chains

KinoChain journeys

Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.

Browse all chains

The Discs That Changed How Britain Watched

When DVD landed in Britain in 1997 it promised cinema in your living room. The discs that followed rewired what collectors expected from a film at home.

10 films

Game On: Cinematic Journeys Through Digital Worlds

From arcade nostalgia to virtual reality epics, these films explore the thrill and terror of living inside the game.

8 films

Darkness Beyond the Gate

A wordless lamb, a talking pig and a band of rabbits walk the same fence line: the moment a gentle countryside turns strange.

6 films

When Studios Marry: Films Born of Corporate Chaos

From the ashes of mergers and acquisitions come some of cinema's most fascinating experiments. This chain traces how boardroom decisions shaped the art on scree...

8 films

The Ghosts Our Machines Keep

A chain about virtual reality, digital afterlife and grief, beginning with Yeon Sang-ho's Paradise Lost and moving through Korean and international cinema's scr...

8 films

The Weight of the Cape: Inheriting a Legacy You Never Asked For

Before the multiverse had a use for her, Kara Zor-El's first outing wasn't framed as destiny, it was framed as a mistake to fix. She loses the Omegahedron, the...

8 films

20 Home Video Releases Every Film Obsessive Should Own

There was a brief, glorious period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when buying a film on home video felt less like acquiring a product and more like being han...

20 films

The DVDs That Changed Everything

In the autumn of 1997, the first DVD players reached British shops, and the format arrived with a sales pitch that sounded too good to be true: cinema in your l...

13 films

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