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Enlightening rendezvous with Andy Serkis

Hollywood’s most famous motion-capture star Andy Serkis is more than happy to let his characters walk away with all the kudos.

Arti Dani catches up with the actor who was in town to attend the Cinematic Innovation Summit 2013, held in conjunction with DIFF
ANDY SERKIS HAS constantly pushed the boundaries of technology and next generation storytelling focusing on CGI and performance capture. He became a part of history by combining acting with technology in his portrayal of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings series. Gollum is an extraordinary character to begin with and Andy does a magnificent job of bringing him to life. His performance made Gollum a cult figure among movie fans. He followed it up with critically acclaimed work in King Kong, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, The Adventures of Tintin and many other performances.

Everyone says that you are one of the nicest guys in the industry.

I am an actor and a filmmaker, I always felt very privileged and lucky to be doing this job. There are so many people working really hard doing things that they are not particularly passionate about, so I am grateful that I am part of an industry where I am able to go to work every day and do something that I love. It is as simple as that and if you cannot be happy and pass that happiness to people you love than it’s not worth it.

Now that you are in Dubai, do you have any plans to collaborate with any Arab talent?

I have not seen any movies yet, but Dubai is so perfectly placed considering the access to various cultures that it has. Filmmaking is a global thing, we work across all time zones, you can be directing a film from the other side of the planet and have a connection, via technology, to access a stage somewhere else. Dubai is a fantastically expanding city and rightly so. It is balanced between Hollywood and Bollywood. I have a company in London called The Imaginarium which is a performance capture studio and we are in talks now about possibility of creating such a thing in Dubai. It would be a facility like a creative laboratory which furthers the art and craft of performance capture that will help talent based here. I think it’s perfect for all the stories that will come from this side of the world, especially from Bollywood where we can recreate old stories using digital avatars - like Mahabharata. It would be perfect for those kinds of stories.

You have spent part of your childhood in the Middle East. Can you share some of those memories with us?

Yes, I am familiar to this region because I have spent some of my childhood in Baghdad and Lebanon. Part of my heart feels connected over here from all the childhood memories. I remember going to outdoor cinemas in Baghdad. The city had a huge outdoor cinema culture when I was young. I remember watching a lot of Abbott and Costello films.

Gollum is the most fascinating character we have come across on the big screen in a long time and you not only voiced him - but every movement, gesture and expression of Gollum’s is yours. How did you manage to customize him?

I think I made sure when I started working on Gollum that I was not being judgmental about it.

Gollum is afflicted by something that is much more powerful than he is, so the way I entered the character was through the point of view of an addiction, of something that you are not in control of, no matter how powerful your personality is. I asked myself this question that if I was given a something as powerful as that ring how would that affect me? From that point everything physical and vocal was about the torment of not being able to cope with that. That was my basis for the role.

In those three years when you were shooting for The Lord of the Rings, did it affect your off-screen personality?

I spent a lot of time getting into the character and finding him emotionally. But I did spend a lot of those time on my own because I was away from my family in New Zealand. I was on the other side of the planet for long stretches which was hard because I had three young children and actually the isolation of being so far away from them helped me find the character.

But you know Gollum has refused to leave me in many ways. He is completely under my skin and people remind me daily about Gollum. It is flattering and that is why I love performance capture because it allows you to completely bury yourself in the character, so I am not interested in the kind of acting that is about having my face on screen.

That kind of fame and celebrity side of things is not exciting to me. For me it is about work and escaping with the characters and I am amazed that people have begun to understand the technology now. While filming, I had thoughts that I would be buried under the character, no one would know who I am but thanks to behind-the-scenes filming and DVDs with the extra bits there was a lot of exposure to how we made it and people learnt about this new technology.

Do you think The Oscars will one day consider performance-capture-roles for nominations?

I think so and I think what is important is that it reaches a point where performance capture or computer graphic roles is not really an issue, if the actor is playing a role they are playing the role. If the role touches an audience or connects with them in some way, I hope eventually they also consider how the performance was created.

Did you feel snubbed by the Academy for not considering your role as Gollum for nomination?

I have reached a point in my career where I know what is more important is the use of technology and storytelling that I want to get involved in, so any sort of accolades are much more than I expected. In my journey I was not expecting to come this far but thanks to Peter Jackson it all happened and clicked for me.

There had been moments in my career where I had to make a decision whether I should go back to live action and continue just being an actor or whether to follow this. I believe this kind of storytelling technique offers immense potential.

What do you think about the future of acting in an increasingly CGI-oriented industry? Should actors be concerned or excited?

I am perhaps very biased because I obviously think that it is a great opportunity. It is like putting on a magic suit that enables you to play anything.

Do you ever miss romancing beautiful actresses on screen? You did romance Naomi Watts in King Kong but you were a Gorilla in the movie...

Yes, I did romance Naomi Watts and I think it was very romantic. As for the missing aspect, I suppose every now and then I do miss it.

Has anyone given you the coolest guy award yet? You are an actor, you promote performance capture technology, you worked as a second unit assistant director for The Hobbit with Peter Jackson, and you are directing your own movie Animal Farm. How do you manage all this?

I feel blessed. Actually I am very close to direction; I wanted to go there for some years now. I started my company so we could service other people’s films, video games, television and start an academy to educate people about this technology.

For the next five years, I am concentrating completely on directing, there are four-five projects that we will be making in the coming years. We are shooting Animal Farm next year and looking at 2015 for its release date.