Recently, Hugo Weaving spoke to Collider about how his Transformers voice-over work for Megatron was meaningless to him.
“[Transformers]’s a weird job for me because it honestly was a two-hour voice job initially … It was one of the only things I’ve ever done where I had no knowledge of it, I didn’t care about it, I didn’t think about it. They wanted me to do it. In one way, I regret that bit. I don’t regret doing it, but I very rarely do something if it’s meaningless. It was meaningless to me, honestly. I don’t mean that in any nasty way. I did it.”
I have never met him. I was never on set. I’ve seen his face on Skype. I know nothing about him, really. I just went in and did it. I never read the script. I just have my lines, and I don’t know what they mean. That sounds absolutely pathetic! I’ve never done anything like that, in my life.
Of course, Michael Bay got all butt hurt and took time out of his busy schedule of creating the perfect explosion and filming aspiring actresses washing his Ferrari to write a blog post about actors getting paid boatloads of money and then whining about it. Wait a minute. Am I about to agree on some level with Michael Bay? This is a strange feeling.
Do you ever get sick of actors that make $15 million a picture, or even $200,000 for voiceover work that took a brisk one hour and 43 minutes to complete, and then complain about their jobs?
With all the problems facing our world today, do these grumbling thespians really think people reading the news actually care about trivial complaints that their job wasn’t “artistic enough” or “fulfilling enough”? […] What happened to people who had integrity, who did a job, got paid for their hard work, and just smiled afterward? Be happy you even have a job — let alone a job that pays you more than 98% of the people in America.
I have a wonderful idea for all those whiners: They can give their “unhappy job money” to a wonderful Elephant Rescue. It’s the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Africa. I will match the funds they donate.
To be fair, Hugo Weaving wasn’t knocking the movie. He was just saying how he wasn’t invested in what he was doing. Though Michael Bay has a point. You got paid $200,000 for an hour of voice-over work. You could have easily not taken the job and kept your integrity but you took it, was handed a bag full of cash and now you’re saying you have regrets. Where were these regrets when you were paying for your hooker fight club? Uh, I mean, electricity bill?
No worries Michael. Next time you just give me a call. I promise I won’t complain one bit! ;)