'There's a bit of Irish spoken': Hugo Weaving on playing an airport chaplain
Hugo Weaving and Shabana Azeez in The Airport Chaplain, on Netflix.
A mislaid bag at an Australian airport inspired an Irish-born producer to embark on one of the most charming and quirky shows of the year.
When Jude Troy lost her bag — containing many important belongings — it led to a frantic search which culminated in her meeting the airport’s chaplain. It prompted a new series set in the ‘all human life is here’ surroundings of an airport, with iconic actor Hugo Weaving taking the lead role. The actor liked the idea of placing a show in the little-seen-onscreen setting of a major travel hub.
“Jude Troy, our producer, is Irish, but lives in Australia,” says Weaving, the star of such hits as and series. “I was doing a play called with Olwen Fouéré, a great Irish actor, and Sydney Theatre Company and the Gate Theatre Company in Dublin. We'd already done the show in Dublin, and we'd moved out to Sydney to do our Sydney season.”
Weaving had previously met Troy, and was intrigued when Fouéré told him of a new show her friend was developing.
“I talked to Jude, heard her version of the story — her story was that she'd lost her bag in an Uber at an airport and was pointed in the direction of Martin Scrimshaw, who's the chaplain at Melbourne Airport,” says Weaving.
“I talked to her about that, and then I thought it was a really great idea as the basis of a series. She then sent me a script, which I loved, and I was very much interested in being a part of it.”
Running at a binge-worthy 30 minutes per episode and featuring a charismatic cast along with Weaving, stars Weaving as Tobias Wallace, an unconventional chaplain who sees his role as part man of the cloth and part social worker.
Whether he is finding lost baggage, transporting dead bodies or offering comfort to lost souls, Tobias will do whatever it takes to help. However, his unorthodox methods bring him into conflict with the airport’s new terminal manager, played by Shabana Azeez.
Following a highly successful run in its native Australia where it was commissioned by the country’s Special Broadcasting Services, the series is new to Netflix.
Weaving travelled to Melbourne Airport to meet the chaplain who inspired the series, though it is not based on Scrimshaw’s life and plays as a broader tale of human nature and workplace politics.
“Martin's backstory is very different from Tobias’s,” says Weaving. “There are quite a lot of similarities in what they do, but a lot of differences as well, and so it meant that I could use Martin as the greatest resource I could ever have, but also I wasn't obliged to in any way replicate his life. I could find my own character.”
Still, he says, both the factual and fictional chaplains are empathetic human beings, who are hardwired to care for others and to want to help other people. It was part of the draw for Weaving in what felt like a unique project.
“I think that's a very rare character to meet in real life, and a very rare character to get on screen. I love the fact that any tension and drama that comes from Tobias doesn't really come from him creating that drama consciously. He may add to the drama by being hardwired to caring for human beings, and therefore he might go against protocols or certain airport efficiencies, or certain structures. But he's very much a humanist, and I loved that. There's drama happening. He's there to try and assist with that drama.”
You get the sense Weaving had great fun with developing the unconventional Tobias, who navigates the system in his own ways and learns multiple languages to communicate with the millions of people passing through to various corners of the world. We even hear him delivering a cupla focal and in Japanese in key scenes.
“I'm actually learning German myself, and I said I think he should be learning a language because that would be great,” says the actor. “There's a bit of Irish being spoken. There are quite a lot of different languages being spoken at the airport, which of course makes perfect sense.”
Weaving has had a remarkable career, with many iconic roles, playing Agent Smith in the films and Elrond in More recent projects include the widely acclaimed and Weaving feels there have been many valued projects through the course of his career. He worked in this part of the world on Lance Daley’s Famine-set film (2018). In what is now an exciting time for Irish language cinema, it felt prescient.
“It was lovely to meet up again with Lance the year before last, because it's been some years since we made that film. But yes, I was surprised when we made that that story had not been told.”
Working with the Sydney Theatre Company, which has brought him to the stage in Ireland, London, America and beyond, remains a treasured part of his work, as does working on films in his homeland.
“Australian films like many many years ago, that was certainly a turning point for me and did very well at Cannes. again made a bit of a splash at Cannes and was quite a remarkable film for a tiny budget Australian film.”
was a film that was embraced around the world, and Weaving was glad to be involved in 30th anniversary screenings in Ireland while performing his theatre run here. “It was great to be in Dublin a couple of years ago for the 30th anniversary of that, and they had a couple of massive sellout screenings of in Dublin, and that was a real treat to see people, talk to people, do a Q&A afterwards. How much that film had meant to young Irish gay people who realised their parents were embracing this film, but they hadn't come out yet.
“ of course, was again quite revolutionary for many different reasons when it was made, and it was a game change for the industry in many ways technically, and also was for me. It opened lots of doors, but often it's the little films, the Australian films, like a film called which was very close to my heart, and it was a big challenge for me to play this particular role, working with some wonderful actors. I've been very lucky, and hopefully I'll keep being employed.”
- is now on Netflix
