Andy Serkis
Andy Serkis
Andrew Clement "Andy" Serkisis an English film actor, director and author. He is best known for his performance capture roles comprising motion capture acting, animation and voice work for such computer-generated characters as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogyand The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the eponymous King Kong in the 2005 film, Caesar in Riseand Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Captain Haddock / Sir Francis Haddock in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintinand Supreme Leader...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth20 April 1964
CityLondon, England
Andy Serkis quotes about
My agent told me they were casting for the voice of Gollum. I hadn't read The Lord of the Rings, but I read the script and realized what an amazing role it was. I developed a voice for the audition tape, then met Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh at the auditions and fell in love with them both.
David Bowie is playing Nikola Tesla, who invented alternating current and I am playing Igor to his Frankenstein.
The whole chameleon thing about acting. That's why I'm moving towards directing - it's a much more healthy occupation.
Gorillas have a belch vocalization, which is sort of like, 'I'm OK, you're OK.' They do a pig grunt, which is reprimanding. They sing, they laugh, and they hoot, which grows into a chest-beating display.
I think there will always be a particular generation of actors who... think that they're going to be replaced by robots. But certainly the emerging actors... understand that that's part of the craft.
I've done a lot of films that are purely live-action roles, and even if I hadn't come across performance capture as a technology, I think I'd always consider myself a sort of mercurial actor.
My natural bent is to have an overabundance of energy, and motion-capture essentializes your every breath, your every move. Seeing yourself through that mask, you realize how far you can pull back and make the performance even more powerful.
Looking back, when I was Gollum, I suppose I did break the mold to a certain extent. I'm proud, and very thrilled, to be a part of that.
I had to relearn how to ride a horse like an ape. I had to change how I jumped off and how I gripped them with my thighs and distribute my weight differently.
It is very much a character piece and very much about relationships. A lot of the themes in the film are about isolation and love, with all the characters isolated in some way.
I have a company in the U.K., a performance-capture studio. We're looking to push the boundaries of performance-capture technology in film and video games, but also in live theater, using real-time performance capture with actors onstage, and combining that with holographic imagery.
Over the years, people have asked me, 'Do you think there should be a separate category for acting in the digital realm? Or hybrid sort of awards for digital characters?' and so on. And I've always really maintained that I don't believe so.
My father was interested in justice, always working for people who needed to be supported.
I've always been a huge fan of Charles Lawton's performance in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' so somewhere along the line, I've always wanted to play that character.