‘I really miss her’: Hugo Weaving on long-distance love

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Hugo Weaving. The actor, 62, is best known for his roles in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings trilogies. He is currently starring in the Australian TV series, Love Me.

“When we’re apart, we realise how much we rely on each other, how much we enjoy each other.”Credit: Getty Images

SEX

You’ve been with your partner, Katrina, for close to 40 years now. What first attracted you to her? My first love, Anna, and Katrina were good mates. We all lived together. Katrina was going out with my best friend from school, so the four of us used to hang out. He went off to Cambridge; Katrina followed him. By the time she came back, Anna and I had split up. It wasn’t a terrible bust-up. When Katrina came back, I realised how thrilled I was to see her again – and I was free.

What keeps you together now? We’re talking about it a lot at the moment. I’m in London; she’s in Sydney. I really miss her; she really misses me. When we’re apart, we realise how much we have in common, how much we rely on each other, how much we need each other, how much we enjoy each other.

You’ve been in the industry since the mid-1980s. How have the sexual politics changed over that time? I probably wouldn’t be cast as Tick in Priscilla now. A number of gay actors were offered one of the roles and they were very reluctant to take it because they didn’t want to out themselves. I’m not a gay man and I don’t have any issues playing gay. But I think a lot of people do now.

How do you reflect on that? We’re actors. The whole art of acting, the whole idea of acting, is to try to understand the other by embodying that other. If we can’t transform into the other, you destroy the idea of acting. Having said all that, I think we’re in an era of much greater inclusivity and that’s very important. There are doors that are open now for so many people that used not to be open, so that’s been a fantastic step forward.

Tell me about Glenn, your character in Love Me, and the sexual journey he’s been on. Glenn is a very conservative beta male. Very loving towards his children, but pretty straitjacketed by his partnership with his wife, who dies. He’s sent into a sort of grieving spiral but, at the same time, is liberated. He continues his journey in season two [which premieres Thursday on Binge], but with the addition of a birth at the end of episode one, which affects everybody.

DEATH

Of the people you’ve lost, whose absence do you feel the most? Oh, definitely my dad.

Tell me about him. My dad died a little while ago, but it still feels quite close. I was in a Berlin nightclub, the music was pumping, then someone said, “Come over.” Katrina had received a message that he had died. I just collapsed. I learnt a lot about grief and about the different ways in which people grieve. Some people get angry, some just cry, some go silent. I just wanted to talk and talk and talk about him. Luckily, my dad’s partner also wanted to do that. It was a great healing force.

What’s left to do before you die? [Laughs] All the things that I probably will never do, like write the book and film scripts I’ve always wanted to write, direct a movie, learn a musical instrument – and how to drive. I’m kind of useless at so many things – I really don’t have too many skills – but the desire is there.

What’s the secret to performing a convincing death? Do not try to stop breathing. You’ll become very tense. In one scene [in the 2018 miniseries Patrick Melrose], Benedict Cumberbatch was talking to me, poking me – the dead body – in the face. I was concentrating on moving my big toe because it couldn’t be seen and trying to think about nothing else.

RELIGION

We’re talking religion, Hugo. As a kid, I thought Francis of Assisi was the most beautiful human being. And I thought Jesus – or the very Euro, blue-eyed, blond-haired image of him that I saw in churches – was the most marvellous human being. But I think my journey around the world has shown me so many different cultures, structures and constructs. And that’s exactly what they are: constructs, imaginings and yearnings of people all over the world to try to explain things we don’t understand. But the natural world – planting a tree, watching it grow, seeing birds and wallabies hop around our property – that’s magical. That’s my God. Nature’s my God.

Religions have sacred texts. What’s yours? The Complete Works of Shakespeare is one of my Bibles, if you like. But when we were doing Waiting for Godot and then Endgame, I started reading everything Samuel Beckett ever wrote. Same thing with Chekhov. So there are great writers who are heroes for me. There’s an Austrian playwright called Thomas Bernhard, whom I’m reading and enjoying.

Do you observe any rituals before you go on stage? I don’t eat very much. I’m often eating a banana in the wings.

So just enough energy, but not enough to feel bloated. Yeah. And I’ll drink water and hopefully feel as if I’ve done as much prep as I can. You can never do enough. It’s about trying to keep loose, open and focused.

What are the commandments for good acting? Listen. Have an intention. Be prepared to fail. Be brave. Keep learning.

[e-mail]

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.