Andy Serkis names his most important acting influences: “I was blown away”
Discussions about who the greatest living actors are tend to bring up names like Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, and Ralph Fiennes, but Andy Serkis is also worthy of being in the running, considering he changed the scope of acting with his groundbreaking motion capture performances.
He wasn’t the first to ever play a fully digital character within a live-action film, with that honour going to Ahmed Best for his controversial performance as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which reduced him to a joke in the prequel trilogy. On the other hand, in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Serkis showed with the role of Gollum that he could use expressions and physicality to create a fantastical creature who was tragic, scary, funny, and complex, making him one of the primary reasons why the film franchise still holds up so well today.
This new acting style within the motion capture realm would also see him embody the titular ape in King Kong, Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot series, Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and Captain Haddock in The Adventures of Tintin.
However, although he seems to regularly appear in genre and adventure films, he said that many of his influences were American actors who appeared in tough, brutal crime films in the 1970s.
“When I was in college, on the American side, it was Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, Robert Duvall and Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, Christopher Walken, John Savage, and John Cazale,” Serkis said, “I was blown away by the emotional impact and sincerity of their performances.”
While he attended school in the United States, the actor from England appeared in many British period pieces, such as Topsy-Turvy, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Longford, and Burke and Hare, and given his respect for the stage, he also listed many of the legends of British theatre among his heroes.
“In the UK, I was going to a lot of theatre at the time and watching great on-stage performances from people like Jonathan Price, Albert Finney, Anthony Hopkins, all of whom really influenced me as well,” Serkis admitted.
He has made it clear that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, which may explain why he has now become a great director in his own right. After helming the comic book sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the period biopic Breathe, the Netflix original Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, and the animated film Animal Farm, Serkis is set to return to base to direct the new live-action prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
While the man may be proud of his influences, it’s safe to say that he’s inspired many other acclaimed actors to try their hand at motion capture acting, such as Zoe Saldaña in the Avatar franchise, Bill Nighy in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Jason Cope in District 9, and Josh Brolin as Thanos in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, ushering in a positive turn to the industry towards this brand of performance.
