Hugo Weaving: I Didn't Care About 'Transformers,' I've Never Met Michael Bay

2:46 PM PDT 10/16/2012 by Jordan Zakarin

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The voice of the evil Megatron says that he never even read the script for the billion-dollar franchise.

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Kids, plug your ears with your Optimus Prime dolls; this will be tough to hear.

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Turns out that Hugo Weaving, who voiced the ultra evil robot in disguise in Michael Bay's three Transformers films, wasn't all that dedicated to the role. Speaking with Collider in support of his new film, Cloud Atlas, Weaving said his preparation was ... well, he didn't prepare.

"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," the English actor said. "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."

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In fact, Weaving did not just know nothing about the project, he drew a total blank on its director.

"But, my link to that and to Michael Bay is so minimal. I have never met him," he continued. "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. It’s hard to say any more about it than that, really."

In a way, this is actually more flattering than the things Shia LaBeouf, who was the live action star of all three Transformers films, had to say about the experience in his interview this summer with The Hollywood Reporter.

After Cloud Atlas, the sprawling book adaptation in which he plays multiple characters, Weaving will star in the three upcoming Hobbit films, reprising his role from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Presumably, he read those books.