Hugo Weaving's Real Name: Hugo Weaving

Quick answer: Hugo Weaving is known professionally as Hugo Weaving. Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, via Encyclopedia.com, gives his full name as Hugo Wallace Weaving and records that he was born April 4, 1960, in Nigeria (Encyclopedia.com). He is an actor long based in Australia, known internationally as Agent Smith in The Matrix and as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings.

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress heading is "Weaving, Hugo, 1960-." A fuller form, Hugo Wallace Weaving, appears in the Encyclopedia.com biography; because that fuller form is not the name he is generally billed under, this page keeps Hugo Weaving in the title. The Australian National Portrait Gallery records that he spent his childhood in England, Australia, and South Africa before returning to live in Australia in 1976, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1981, and later was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) (National Portrait Gallery). Encyclopedia.com identifies his father as a seismologist named Wallace and notes his 1981 NIDA graduation as well.

Career highlights

The National Portrait Gallery says he made his television debut in the 1984 series Bodyline and appeared with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton (1989) before winning the Australian Film Institute Award for best actor for Proof (1991). The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), in which Encyclopedia.com lists him as Anthony "Tick" Belrose / Mitzi del Bra, and the voice of Rex in Babe (1995) widened his audience.

Between 1999 and 2003 he played Agent Smith in The Matrix and its two sequels, and he played the elf-lord Elrond in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films (2001–2003), appearing alongside Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, and Christopher Lee. Encyclopedia.com notes Screen Actors Guild ensemble nominations for those films and a further AFI best-actor award for The Interview (1998). The Portrait Gallery records later work including Little Fish (2005) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016), and stage work with the Sydney Theatre Company, including Hedda Gabler with Cate Blanchett in New York in 2006.

Name notes for searchers

Hugo Weaving is the professional name and the Library of Congress heading. A reference work gives the fuller form Hugo Wallace Weaving. Searchers looking for Agent Smith or Elrond are usually aiming at the same person.