In his latest movie, ''V for Vendetta," you never see his face. It's hidden behind a mask -- and he's the title character. (These days much of his face is covered with a full beard for a stage production of Ibsen's ''Hedda Gabler" that he's doing here with Cate Blanchett.)
''I think," Weaving says, ''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. And it becomes harder for you to successfully create another human being . . . So the idea of playing this man in a mask and never being seen was wonderful."
Mention Weaving's name and you're likely to get a blank look. But you'll get instant recognition by reciting Agent Smith's creepy salutation from ''The Matrix." You'll hear it echoed in everyday life: A mailroom staffer -- employing Weaver's evil lilt -- will call out to a friend, ''Mr. Anderson." Ditto a guy on the street, shouting to a pal down the block.
The Australian actor smiles when these recent evocations of his characters are relayed to him.
''Look, I loved Smith. I thought he was a great comic character. I thought he was a great film villain as well," he says. ''But he's also a villain who's been written with such enormous humor. Larry and Andy [Wachowski, the brothers behind the ''Matrix" trilogy] enjoyed writing that character enormously, and that's the thing I responded to when I first read it -- was how much fun it would be to play that man. Because he's an agent of control, he's a construct, he's not a human being, he wears his own mask as well, really. He starts to kind of feel these emotions, and he has the most fantastic dialogue."
Paydays from the big-budget movies -- including the ''Lord of the Rings" series, in which he played the elf leader Elrond -- give him the financial security to pursue other things creatively.
