Andy Serkis - King Of Motion Capture
The Lord Of The Rings legend on King Kong, 24 Hour Party People and reprising his most famous role in the Hobbit movies.
How hard was it to say goodbye to the Lord Of The Rings experience?
It was unbelievably difficult. It’s so rare to work on a project for so long. Come the end, you just couldn’t believe that you wouldn’t be seeing the same faces everyday at work. We’d become a sort of family and to have to say goodbye to that special group of people was very, very tough. That said, it was a bit easier for me because, such was the length of the shoot, I’d already made my first post-Rings picture [Jennifer Garner vehicle 13 Going On 30] before the actual Rings shoot was over. So at least I’d already had a taste of what life would be like post-Gollum.
Speaking of Gollum, how did you land the part?
When the role was first offered to me, I wasn’t that interested in it. At that time, I was simply asked whether I’d like to provide the voice of a character for a film that was going to be shot in New Zealand and that didn’t have a lot of appeal. But then it emerged that the film in question was The Lord Of The Rings, that the director was Peter Jackson and that the part was Gollum. When all of that had been established,
I was much more curious, but I still wasn’t that interested in simply sitting in a booth and providing the vocals. So then I started talking to Peter and his wife and collaborator Fran Walsh and we reached a point where we agreed that it would be more interesting if I interpreted the part on set. I’m so glad we did that because I think that Gollum wouldn’t work so well without that direct interaction with Elijah Wood and Sean Astin.
As Gollum, you spent a lot of time wearing a jumpsuit. That couldn’t have been too comfortable.
No, it wasn’t great. And the New Zealand winter only made things worse. I must say that when I made 13 Going On 30, the difficulty of moving on from Rings was made easier by the fact that I was able to work in trousers for the first time in two years!
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