When a copy of the script for Last Ride arrived at Hugo Weaving’s house via post, he knew immediately that he wanted to be involved. After reading it once, he was so convinced of the strength of the script – and intrigued by the central character Kev, a petty criminal on the run through central Australia with his young son in tow – that he contacted director Glendyn Ivin straight away to express his interest. "It was a very easy impulse decision," he laughs, "and they’re the best ones to act on. Then you think, damn, now I have to do all the work ..."

A fascinatingly flawed character, Kev is not remotely likeable, but thanks to Weaving’s performance, he has an energy that’s impossible to ignore. "He’s brusque," says Weaving, "and he has a lot of problems controlling his impulses and anger. He’s always on the wrong side of the law, he resents those in power, but he’s also bit of a bushie, a greenie almost." Kev picks fights with strangers, steals cars and assaults women, but he has a softer side, a side that wants to teach his son to swim in billabongs, and navigate by the stars. "He wants to be a good father and a good role model," Weaving says, "show his son the ropes, but of course, in many ways, he’s a horrible father. That’s that made the character interesting to me."

When it comes to developing a character and getting inside his skin, Weaving’s process is different from film to film, with each one providing a new set of problems and challenges. When it comes to a character like Kev, he tells me, he tries to find a real-life counterpart, someone with similar experiences and psychology, who can act as a template. Director Glendyn Ivin found such a person, a former petty criminal, and recorded many hours of interviews with him, resources Weaving found invaluable. "This guy really struck me," he says, "and I replayed the tapes a lot, to try and get an understanding of where he’d been and where he was going." The two never met face to face, but one can only wonder what this man would make of the violent, self-destructive Kev were he to see the finished film.

Though the film is essentially a two-hander between Weaving and young actor Tom Russell, the Australian landscape plays a key part, to the point where it could be considered a third character. Much of Last Ride was shot in the Flinders Ranges, over a six-week period with a small crew – though Weaving had been there before, when shooting Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, he had never before realised the beauty and vastness of the country. "It’s really exquisite landscape," he says. "One of the great joys of being an actor in an Australian production on the road is going out on tour with this instant family."

The landscape did, however, provide a number of challenges when filming. "There’s the scene where I jump in the billabong and threaten to drag Tommy in, and the water there was freezing," he says, "just painfully, painfully cold. We had to abandon it and come back two days later, but even then, we had a lot of trouble figuring out how we were going to shoot that scene so no-one was in the water for too long. It was dangerous, particularly for Tommy." Another scene, featuring a herd of goats, proved problematic. "Trying to contain them within a certain area was hard," Weaving says dryly. "Everyone was chasing them for hours, and after a while, we abandoned the sequence altogether and reshaped it in a way that didn’t include goats".

At this point in his career, Weaving is in an enviable position as an actor, able to move between huge Hollywood fare (who among us is not familiar with Agent Smith?) and tiny independents like this one. Does the former allow him more freedom to pursue the latter, I wonder? "The big budget films were never really my focus," he says. "It started with The Matrix, which is something I wasn’t keen on doing initially, but I met the directors and got on well with them. I really enjoyed the process, and it was an eye-opener working on a massive production like that. I generally prefer smaller films, because they’re a lot more intimate and you’re generally required to work a lot harder, but they’re generally more rewarding for me as an actor. That doesn’t mean I don’t work at the big budget films. I feel I’ve developed a couple of very different careers, but they complement each other, and I feel very lucky to work in both areas."

LAST RIDE is in cinemas Thursday Jul 2, rated [M]. www.lastridemovie.com

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