Hugo Weaving was interviewed by Collider this week, and holy crap was he awesomely candid. Besides saying he found out The Hobbit would be a trilogy at the same time the rest of us found out, he also added, “They decided that there are three films in there. I hope there are. I don’t know.” But this was only a preview of the truth bombs Hugo Weaving was about to drop.
Speaking about voicing Megatron in Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, Weaving said he’s never met Bay. He then mentioned that he didn’t even know what Megatron was talking about. (That makes two of us, dude.)
“[Transformers was] a weird job for me because it honestly was a two-hour voice job, initially. I was doing a play and I actually didn’t have time, anyway. It was one of the only things I’ve ever done where I had no knowledge of it, I didn’t care about it, I didn’t think about it. [...] I just happened to be the voice of one of the iconic villainous characters. But, my link to that and to Michael Bay is so minimal. I have never met him. I was never on set. I’ve seen his face on Skype. I know nothing about him, really. I just went in and did it. I never read the script. I just have my lines, and I don’t know what they mean. That sounds absolutely pathetic! I’ve never done anything like that, in my life. It’s hard to say any more about it than that, really.”
Imagining Hugo Weaving looking confusedly at Megatron’s lines divorced from their context just made my day.
Weaving continued not giving a single f–k when he was asked if his character of Red Skull in Captain America may show up in another Marvel movie:
“I don’t think Red Skull will be there. And it’s not something I would want to do again. I’m glad I did it. I did sign up for a number of pictures and I suppose, contractually, I would be obliged to, if they forced me to, but they wouldn’t want to force someone to do it, if they didn’t want to. I think I’ve done my dash with that sort of film.”
The full interview is over at Collider, but we can sum it up with one picture:
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/72/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/cccc100513-10-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/mashup-tmnt-wallace-and-gromit-toothy-middle-aged-nit-wit-terrapins-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/tmnt-William-Fichtner-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/cosplay-tmnt-michelangelo-bodypaint-150x150.jpg)
Phoning it in seems like a perfectly reasonable approach to a Michael Bay movie.
Haha, I love you, Agent Smith.
as much as I love his character work, I don’t think he’s in that much demand that he can be going around pissing people off.
*cough* Agent Smith *cough* V *cough* Elf King….
Guy’s made his money, and obviously doesn’t care for the “artistic integrity” of movies like Transformers. I think he can piss off whoever he wants
I get a distinct Gary Oldman vibe from Hugo Weaving. He does the crap movies for the money to pay for the projects he’s interested in. I’m perfectly okay w/ that arrangement.
He is talking bad about the Transformers franchise and Michael Bay.
He doesnt give a fuck about pissing people off obviously.
And finding more work doesnt seem like its a problem for him if you look at what hes done and still doing, he wont lose sleep over it.
Suddenly the why he is in the Happy Feet franchise makes complete sense.
Not giving a shit about a Michael Bay Transformers movie is one thing, but if you knowingly half-ass a character that people have loved for decades, that’s just inconsiderate.
I’m not saying that Mr. Weaving is guilty of this (how many people would really care if he only played Red Skull again because he had to?) But there are others out there that come to mind.
I’m just saying, if a character I grew up with and loved ended up getting a shitty, underdeveloped film portrayal due to the indifference of an actor/director, I would be pretty upset. *cough* Venom *cough*
Yeah, but Hugo Weaving’s indifference is better than most actors’ 110%.
Hugo was channeling the spirt of Orson Wells when doing his voice work. Wells didn’t care/knew nothing about Transformers when he voiced Unicron in the 1986 movie as well.
Hugo Weaving phoning in a half-assed portrayal of a toy/action figure I grew up playing with is the least of my concerns with a Michael Bay movie. More important? How did this jackass get a dump truck full of thousand dollar bills to make this polished turd? Could we travel back in time and just take all of the money spent on Michael Bay films and just shoot it into the sun?
He gave Michael Bay’s movies the consideration they deserved. I actually liked Captain America, and would love to see Hugo come back, but I’d much rather see him involved in something he’s passionate about. I really hope there are three movies worth of material in The Hobbit, but I’ve got a lot of confidence in everyone involved.