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When I Played Gollum In 'lord Of The Rings,' If I Was Climbing Up The Side Of A Mountain, Which I Physically Did, You Know, I Was On Every Single Occasion Swimming Through Streams, All Of That, That Wasn't Captured. That Was Filmed On 35 Millimeter, And For Certain Of Those Shots, It Was Rotoscoped And Painted Over.

-Andy Serkis

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When I Played Gollum

Andy Serkis

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When I Played Gollum In 'lord Of The Rings,' If I Was Climbing Up The Side Of A Mountain, Which I Physically Did, You Know, I Was On Every Single Occasion Swimming Through Streams, All Of That, That Wasn't Captured. That Was Filmed On 35 Millimeter, And For Certain Of Those Shots, It Was Rotoscoped And Painted Over.

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The Process Of Acting Is No Different [playing Human Or Ape]. You're Embodying The Character. You're Creating The Psychology And The Physicality. You're Living The Moment.

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That's What I Think Is The Biggest Challenge, Is Just Being Still And Learning How To Just Be Present In That Stillness And Not Over Do It, Not Over Act.

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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.

Performance Capture Is A Genre Of Acting Which Is Not Going To Go Away, It's Going To Proliferate More And More. I'm Passionate About It, And I Love It. It's The Most Liberating Tool An Actor Has, Because You Are Not Limited By Your Own Physicality, Look, Or Color Of Your Eyes.

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.

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.

Performance Capture Is A Technology, Not A Genre; It's Just Another Way Of Recording An Actor's Performance.

At The Moment, My Trajectory Isn't To Think About Acting. I'm Absolutely Devoted To The Imaginarium, Our Projects And Directing. And Watching And Enabling Other Actors Do Their Thing In Our Studio Is Hugely Rewarding. 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.

My Belief About Performance Capture Is That It's A Technology Which Allows Actors To Play Extraordinary Characters. But From An Acting Perspective, I've Never Drawn A Distinction Between Playing A Conventional, Live Action Character And Playing A Role In A Performance Capture Suit. And From A Purely Acting Point-of-view, I Don't Believe There Should Be A Special Oscar Category Because I Think It Sort Of Muddies The Waters In A Way.

The Whole Chameleon Thing About Acting. That's Why I'm Moving Towards Directing - It's A Much More Healthy Occupation.

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.

I Suppose The Biggest Strain Was That Hoodwink Is A High-octane Character And He's Up There Like All The Time. Once He's On His Journey There's No Let Up For The Man, So I Actually Found It A Massively Exhausting Job To Keep That Level Up.

Acting Is Acting, As Far As I'm Concerned And, You Know, How You Manifest It Is, At The End Of The Day, Not The Point. It's How It Affects The Story & How It Affects The Audience. And If People Are Hungry To Be Told Stories, Using, Using This Form Then There's A Reason For That.

The End Of The Day

What's Wonderful About Tolkien And Shakespeare Is That They Show Up Your Own Individual Microscope. They're So Infinitely Vast. You Can Reinterpret Them In So Many Ways. Each Age Will Have Its Own Resonance With Lord Of The Rings.

I'd Already Started Directing Short Films When We Were Doing 'lord Of The Rings,' Then Videogame Projects.

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.

I Love Playing Real Characters... If They're Not Around Anymore It's Helpful Because You Won't Get Sued! But There's So Much Research Involved And I Love That Part Of The Process.

35mm Film Isn't Ticking Away So It's Subconscious - Performances Are Allowed To Breathe In A Much More Real Way I Think.

There's This Whole Grey Area Seemingly Every Time It's Talked About Animators And Who Takes Ultimate Responsibility For The Characters [of The Planet Of The Apes] But Without Question And I'll Go Down Saying This Year After Year, These Characters Are Authored By What We Do On Set. They Are Not Authored By Animators.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After 'kong,' My Knuckles Have Never Recovered Because I Had To Wear Very Heavy Weights On My Forearms And Around My Hips And Ankles To Get The Sense Of Size And Scale Of The Movement Of The Character You Are Telling Your Body That You Are These Things And That You're Feeling These Thoughts And That You're Experiencing These Experiences.

[greek] Theater Started Off And Used Masks And Kabuki, In The East, They Used Mask-work. And Then, Commedia Dell'arte In Italy And Then, You Know, We're Part Of An Acting Tradition And, And Performance Capture Is No Different.

Basically We're Puppeteers And If You're There And You're In The Character, The Puppet Is Going To Look Good. It's Going To Breath Life And I Think Once They Find Out How To Trust This System, You Just Forget About It And Just Perform, Then It's Just Second Nature, It Just Becomes Easy.

I Just Directed The Jungle Book With Cate Blanchet And Christian Bale.

Where As You Go Into Playing Something Like Ulysses [on Black Panther], You Go - I'm Going To Have This Haircut And This Cloth, You Draw From Different Stimulus.

Everybody Thinks Performance Capture Is About Thrashing Around And Doing A Lots Of Movement, But It's Actually About Being Able To Contain And Think And Be Believed In A Close-up, As Much As Anything Else.

When You Have Children, You Realize That At The End It's All About Passing On, About Handing Down. The Process Of Letting Go, Not Attachment, But Appreciating The Beauty And Value In The Change, The Transformation.

I Am A Bit Evangelical, I Know, But Performance-capture Is Still Misunderstood.

What I'm Saying Is People Like Hoodwink Are Not Kind Of Evil Villains, They're Part Of Humanity. We Can Choose To Disassociate Ourselves From Them And We Can Choose To Pretend They're Not There, But They Are. We're All Together In This.

It's A Weird Thing With Acting And It Happens To A Lot Of Actors, Not Just Myself - It's Like You're Giving Off An I Really Need To Be Loved Today Vibe. My Worst Moment Recently Is I Fell Asleep On The Tube In London On The Victoria Line 8:30 In The Morning And I Woke Up And There Were About Five People With Iphones Taking Pictures.

For Me, I've Never Drawn A Distinction Between Live-action Acting And Performance-capture Acting. It Is Purely A Technology.

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