Hugo Weaving Quotes

When you're battling against the minds of the studios and the money that can go into promoting larger budget films, it's very hard for a very small-budget Australian film to get a look in. You can get critically acclaimed and go to various film festivals around the world, but that doesn't necessarily mean the majority of people are going to hear about it.

Never send a human to do a machine's job

Initially I probably didn't even call it acting, but dressing up or something. As a kid I think you fully imagine the world in which you want to inhabit, so you put some clothes on and just kind of freely imagine this world, and it's a total imaginary world.

It's kind of chased away a few demons for me and, um, it's educated me a little bit more.

When you're a kid you have this sense of wonder and wholeness and a strong sense of your own identity.

There's nothing like being on a massive-budget film where you don't know anything, and there's a million people, and no one's communicating.

I still, by and large, make low-budget Australian films.

Being in the woods at night is a beautiful thing.

If the script grabs me and appeals to me, I'm really very keen to work on it.

One of the positive aspects from my point of view in terms of lifestyle doing film is that I can say "Well, I'm now going to have three months where I'm just going to hang out and be with the family".

A lot of people have a fear of Shakespeare. Even actors do. People are like, "Oh, I won't go and see Shakespeare because the language is so hard," but it is. When you read it on the page, you go, "What?! What does that mean?!" If you go to a Shakespeare play and you've never been, you sit there and go, "I'm an idiot! I don't get it!"

I think when your image becomes so big that it's hard for a viewer to see a character, then I think you're in danger as an actor of being unable to perform what you should be doing.

Across the board, Australian films need to have a lot more money spent on selling them.

To me acting originally became an extension of game playing.

I packed coffee once when I lived in Australia, and I just remember going around every day with coffee up my nose and in my ears.

People are more likely to pass me on the street without recognizing me, and that's good.

I think I'm much less self confident today. I actually went through a quite painful period because of that thinking that I was completely hopeless. But I think that's something that we all go through at various times of our lives and it was quite a sustained thing with me.

Film has a tendency to be limiting in some way and it shouldn't be. It's a form that can be explored and changed.

It's a real pleasure to go to work when you're in the most extraordinary surroundings, and working with people who are young and interested and creatively keen.

I think any role you need to play not so much transforms but I like to think of it as understanding the psychology of another character.

I don't think I'll ever escape the fact that I don't belong anywhere in particular. I've often dreamed about going back to Nigeria, but that's a very romantic notion. It's a hideous country to go to in reality.

I certainly don't advocate terrorism as a way of progressing and understanding people, nor do I believe labeling everything as a terrorist act is helpful either.

We're all outsiders in a way. We're all alone and can become very lonely.

Both my parents are English and I was born in West Africa, and I moved around as a kid, lived in Bristol, lived in Buckinghamshire and Surrey as a kid, and then moved when I was 16.

I do feel like I'm not entirely an insider.

Film sets are constantly amusing because you really are creating something that is so very surreal, and I kind of like that.

It's great to blow the image that people have of me out of the water.

I'm always trepidatious and excited about what I do. I wouldn't choose to do something, unless I am really excited about it.

I think I'm a bit of a dreamer. I don't like the reality of life to impinge much on my life.

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.