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Hugo Weaving Spills The Tea On Why He Wasn’t In Avengers: Endgame And Won’t Be On Matrix 4

Australian actor Hugo Weaving is known for acting in some of the most successful movie franchises of all time. Some of the franchises under his belt include Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit and The Matrix. Weaving too brought Marvel’s Red Skull to life in Captain America: The First Avenger.

Hugo Weaving
Hugo Weaving as Elrond in The Lord of The Rings

When Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame rolled out, fans were quick to note that Weaving’s Red Skull was nowhere to be seen. Now, in a recent interview with Time Out, the 59-year-old shared that he won’t be appearing in the upcoming Matrix 4 movie.

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What..why? Well, here’s the tea folks! Weaving is about to serve it to you, and he’s serving it HOT. So get a cuppa and some biscuits on the side.

Speaking about his Red Skull role, Weaving said his non-appearance was due to Marvel not being able to fulfil their promise to him.

hugo weaving
Hugo Weaving as Red Skull in Captain America

“I loved playing that character Red Skull – it was a lot of fun. We were all obliged to sign up for three pictures: I was thinking [Red Skull] probably wouldn’t come back in Captain America but he may well come back as a villain in The Avengers. By then, they’d pushed back on the contracts that we agreed on and so the money they offered me for The Avengers was much less than I got for the very first one, and this was for two films. And the promise when we first signed the contracts was that the money would grow each time. They said: “It’s just a voice job, it’s not a big deal”. I actually found negotiating with them through my agent impossible. And I didn’t really wanna do it that much. But I would have done it.”

Without prompting, Weaving then shared that he would not be appearing in Matrix 4 because of conflicting schedules with his theatre performance of The Visit.

Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith in The Matrix

The Matrix is a very different story. It’s unfortunate but actually, I had this offer [for The Visit] and then the offer came from The Matrix, so I knew it was happening but I didn’t have dates. I thought [I] could do both and it took eight weeks to work out that the dates would work – I held off on accepting [a role in The Visit during that time],” said Weaving. “I was in touch with [director] Lana Wachowski, but in the end, she decided that the dates weren’t going to work. So we’d sorted the dates and then she sort of changed her mind. They’re pushing on ahead without me.”

Matrix 4 is centred around the younger versions of the trilogy’s characters so it is entirely possible for Agent Smith to be portrayed by a different actor. Matrix sees star Jada Pinkett Smith returning and franchise newcomers Jessica Henwick, Neil Patrick Harris, Jonathan Groff, Toby Onwumere, Max Riemelt, and Eréndira Ibarra as part of the cast.

Warner Bros. has already set 21 May 2021 for the film’s release date.