His films may have grossed more than $6 billion worldwide but there was a time when the actor was living in Turramurra, coveting a different life in the city.

Born in Nigeria to English parents, he was the second of three children, with an older brother, Wallace, and younger sister, Anna-Jane. His mother Anne was a tour guide and his father, also Wallace, a seismologist.

Weaving said his childhood was comfortably nomadic, with his family never spending more than two years in any one place.

He first came to Australia as a five-year-old but in 1976 the Weavings returned for good, settling in Turramurra. While he completed his final years of school, Weaving said he felt almost immediately confined by his new home.

“I very much wanted to get away from the north shore, to be honest,” he told the North Shore Times.

“It was a very safe and supportive environment but I was very conscious of wanting to get out and get into the city.”

One of the biggest adjustments for Weaving was starting at his new school.

Knox Grammar was large, formal and single-sex, very different from what he had experienced elsewhere.

“I had been to so many different schools all over the world that, to me, Knox was a much more formal school,” he said

“At that stage I had just come from a very liberal school in England and the idea of having to wear boaters when you’re a 16-year-old boy seemed to me like a really weird throwback.”

Despite still being a teenager, Weaving’s love of acting and the arts were already one of his biggest focuses. This made his location on the north shore even more difficult as he said quality theatre and artistic outlets were one of the area’s biggest gaps.

“One of the things I thought the north shore lacked was places like good theatre because, on a Friday night, my friends and I would often say let’s get the train into town and go to a club or bar.

“The good thing about Knox for me was the drama program was pretty great, so I found myself doing a number of plays while I was at school.”

There was one place that Weaving describes gravitating to as a teenager, however — Marian Street Theatre.

He recalls the workshops he took part in and the shows in which he sat in the audience, describing it as one of the few places where you could meet other like-minded and artistic people.

That is why, when the theatre was closed to professional productions, the actor lent his voice to the campaign to have it reopened. Commenting on the recent announcement the theatre would get a reprieve in the form of an upgrade, Weaving said it would be great for future generations to be able to share his experiences.

“One of the reasons Marian Street Theatre was interesting to me was because it was one of the few places there was on the north shore for theatre,” he said.

“I think that’s one of the most exciting things about the redevelopment. It will give everyone in the area a chance to see shows and get involved in projects in the way that I was able to.”

Weaving graduated from Knox and the lure of city life and everything it had to offer had left him searching for life beyond the north shore. He carried out those plans soon after graduation, moving to inner city Woolloomooloo and attending the National Institute of Dramatic Art at Kensington.

It has been 40 years since the now 58-year-old left the north shore behind, however he still returns frequently to visit his mother.

Despite saying he would never move back, he describes that time in his life as one of transition.

“The north shore was a very transitional place and period for me … as it marked the end of school and looking over the horizon to something that was really exciting,” he said.

“It represented a place I was moving from and it marked the end of childhood and the beginning of something else.

“There was something very safe and comfortable about the north shore which I think I instinctively wanted to get away from.”