Hugo Weaving: ‘This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done’

‘I don’t drive, I walk.’ Hugo Weaving takes a break from rehearsing the play The President for the Sydney Theatre Company, in which he co-stars with Irish actor Olwen Fouéré. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Hugo Weaving is striding down Wharf 4 in Sydney’s Walsh Bay where the wind is kicking up and dark rain clouds are building. Tall and lanky, he is dressed in his signature black rehearsal jeans and T-shirt, black work boots on his feet, reading glasses hooked on his shirt neck.

He approaches with open arms, as if he might hug, but settles for a warm handshake before a quick photoshoot. Passersby stop for a look. He is recognised, perhaps from his roles in The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix, but today at least, no one approaches him for a selfie.

As we set out for a lunchtime stroll up and down the Walsh Bay wharves, I ask what he has been up to this morning. He has, he says, spent hours in the bath. “Laughing and coughing in the bath.”