I think my mum wanted me to join the army or something, or become a surveyor - something with good career prospects.
— Andy Serkis
Gollum's never really gone too far away from me because he's indelibly kind of printed into my DNA now, I think.
Gorilla tourism is vital to Rwanda's economy: It's the third highest source of income.
Playing a character in a video game is different to other performances because your character can't lead the audience of players in one direction.
As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.
That's why I ended up going to Lancaster University, because they had a visual arts course, and in the first year it was like a broad visual arts course in sculpture, painting, graphics - all of that.
The whole chameleon thing about acting. That's why I'm moving towards directing - it's a much more healthy occupation.
I'm in the early stages of a film called 'Freezing Time' about Eadweard Muybridge, the Victorian photographer who was really the forefather of cinema. Digital animators still treat his images like the Bible. He was a very obsessed man.
I remember kind of doing early acting and thinking, 'God, they don't paint behind the sets.' It's a bit of a shame, really - 'Oh, what's on the other side of this wall? Oh, you can see the plywood.' I was really disappointed. I just thought that these things were real, from watching things as a kid.
My dad was working abroad, in Iraq, and he was a doctor. We used to go and visit him, in Baghdad, off and on. For the first ten years of my life, we used to go backwards and forwards to Baghdad, so that was quite amazing. I spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East.
I play saxophone, I play tenor sax.
Originally when I went off to work on 'The Lord of The Rings' I got a call from my agent saying that I was just going to do a voice. But I couldn't really approach it like that. To get Gollum's voice I had to play the character.
The learning curve is 'The Hobbit' is being shot in 3D.
Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away.
The fact of the matter is that an actor, if I'm playing a performance capture role and you're playing a live action role and we're having a scene together, there's no difference in our acting processes.
We've never had nannies. We've had great grandparents, great support from family, and the kids have been on every set: they've seen me play Gollum, King Kong, Captain Haddock, the lot. They totally get it, and they want to go into the business. Ruby, my daughter, is very keen to become an actress.
I'd already started directing short films when we were doing 'Lord of the Rings,' then videogame projects.
I guess I just tend to feel at home wherever I go.
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.
Gorillas are still wild creatures. That's made very clear when you observe them in nature. They charge and perform other displays that are terrifying by design. But they don't attack unless they feel threatened.
Every age has its storytelling form, and video gaming is a huge part of our culture. You can ignore or embrace video games and imbue them with the best artistic quality. People are enthralled with video games in the same way as other people love the cinema or theatre.
In terms of animation, animators are actors as well. They are fantastic actors. They have to draw from how they feel emotionally about the beat of a scene that they're working on. They work collaboratively.
I can get on with all different sorts of people, and I never feel homesick, particularly, or I've never felt kind of patriotic towards any one country.
I do listen to myself sometimes and think, 'Is my moral compass so easily swayed by the characters I play, or is it me growing as a human being?'
My first job when I got my equity card was acting in 14 plays back-to-back. Playing that many roles, you look for ways of differentiating the characters physically, which goes hand in hand with understanding them psychologically.
I wanted to be a painter, really, when I was growing up as a kid. It was one thing that really took a grip on me.
For film and games, there is now a fantastic method of actors portraying characters which don't necessarily look like themselves. And yet you've still got the heart and soul of the performance.
But I think there's something wonderful and extraordinary about climbing on your own and just that kind of relationship to the environment. I'm very addicted to the mountains. You know, so, I do like that solitude.
I am a bit evangelical, I know, but performance-capture is still misunderstood.
People think, 'Oh, well how can 'The Hobbit,' which is one book, become three films?' But you can take one line from an appendice and it turns into a whole sequence.
I think even back as far as 'Lord of the Rings,' there was always the chance that 'The Hobbit' would be made, even way back then. Of course at that point, Peter Jackson didn't probably think at that point that he'd be directing it.
More and more good actors are now transmigrating into the videogame space and playing roles there because it's where my generation of kids get stories from.
I understand why people went nuts for 'The Artist.' We use words so much, it's nice to be able to explore a different way of communication, to be able to express silently what someone - or something - is thinking or feeling.
Not a day goes by where I'm not reminded of Gollum by some person in the street who asks me to do his voice or wants to talk to me about him. But because 'The Hobbit' has been talked about as a project for many years, I knew that at some point I'd have to reengage with him.
It was a fairly happy childhood. My father was working away, and my mum brought up five kids all on her own.
What's fantastic is that there's a real growing appreciation for performance-capture technology as a tool for acting.
I'd like to think that we strive in film and theatre to tell great stories, and I believe in the power of storytelling in our culture.
Climbing's always been a massive hobby of mine up until, kind of, recent times when I've had family, but no, it's been a driving passion in my life, and, uh, I've always wanted to climb the Matterhorn. It was the mountain that, sort of, inspired me to climb, as a youngster.
For me, I've never drawn a distinction between live-action acting and performance-capture acting. It is purely a technology.
What you can do with visual effects is enhance the look of the character, but the actual integrity of the emotional performance and the way the character's facial expressions work, that is what is going to be created on the day with other actors and the director.
You're watching your kids playing football, and you're not present. It's like the worst... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with.
I stayed in Baghdad every summer until I was 14. My dad's sister is still there, but many of my relatives have managed to get out. People forget that there are still people there who are not radicalized in any particular direction, trying to live normal lives in a very difficult situation.
I never felt totally, 100%, patriotically English... I'd seen a lot of the world by an early age - sort of spent a lot of time traveling around Lebanon and I'd seen Babylon, and Damascus, and all sorts of places in the Middle East by the time I was ten. Then we'd return to Ruslip in West London... Done a fair bit of traveling really.
And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.
Yeah, I mean, climbing's always been a massive hobby of mine up until, kind of, recent times when I've had family, but no, it's been a driving passion in my life and, uh, I've always wanted to climb the Matterhorn. It was the mountain that, sort of, inspired me to climb, as a youngster. So, it was great to be able to get to do it.
In the same way 'Lord of the Rings' was an interpretation of the book, 'The Hobbit' is being treated the same way. It will be faithfully represented with a fresh interpretation.
I've been writing and wanting to direct for a long time.
I'm definitely moving more towards directing now.
When I was in theater I was forever trying to inhabit a space which puts yourself under the microscope as an actor and your personality and your take on life, but actually through another portal of a character.
I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.
