“It’s the end of our profession”: Andy Serkis’ long road back from being acting’s public enemy number one
Some actors have a niche, and Andy Serkis’ niche is playing characters who aren’t actually there.
The British star has made a name for himself (and a boatload of money) by lending not just his voice to CGI characters, but also his body through the magic of motion capture. From playing a range of primates in King Kong and the Planet of the Apes series to everyone’s favourite Star Wars villain, Supreme Leader Snoke (oh dear), he has made a huge impact while rarely ever showing his face.
Of course, the character that really got the ball rolling on this specialist subject was Gollum. Serkis donned a giant, human-sized condom to bring to life the corrupted ringbearer in Peter Jackson’s epic take on JRR Tolkien’s masterpiece.
To call this partnership iconic would be an understatement, for Serkis gave a definitive performance of the creature once known as Smeagol, to the point where it would feel wrong for anyone else to play him, which is perhaps that’s why he’s coming back for the upcoming Hunt for Gollum film, which he is also directing.
In an interview with GQ, he remembered what it was like when the films first came out, and while actors like Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen were catapulted to worldwide fame, he remained under the radar, saying, “When [The] Lord of the Rings originally came out, there would be literally people who would say, ‘Who is that character? Is he a dancer? Is he a contortionist?’”
As is the case with all new technology in movies, there were those who opposed motion capture and worried it would bring about the end of the world as we know it, and while Serkis wasn’t the first actor to step into motion capture, he quickly became the face of it, which meant that he also became a ripe target for criticism.
“Older actors were like, ‘You wouldn’t catch me dead doing motion capture. It’s the end of our profession’,” Serkis continued, “I literally heard someone saying that. There were lots of jokes about it; you know, Saturday Night Live things with people in suits with ping pong balls attached. It was ripe for ridiculing, and rightly so.”
Mo-cap, as it is known, became Hollywood’s new favourite toy around the turn of the millennium, with The Lord of the Rings one of the first major films to make it work, along with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the Star Wars prequels, and the criticism that Serkis is referring to mirrors the conversation surrounding AI today, with one major difference being that motion capture still requires a human being to work.
Thus, Serkis put in a lot of effort in creating Gollum, which got him paid and due recognition, ultimately proving all those old heads wrong, and now motion capture is a Hollywood staple, with many of the highest-grossing and most culturally relevant films of the past two decades featuring it in some form or fashion, allowing Serkis to take immense pride in being an early adopter who helped shape the modern movie landscape, even if he did look like a tit while doing it.
