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. Andy Serkis More Quotes by Andy Serkis More Quotes From Andy Serkis 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. Andy Serkis character looks thinking My take is that acting is acting. A performance is a performance. With performance capture, if you don't get the performance on the day, you can't enhance the performance. Andy Serkis capture performances acting We've never had nannies. We've had great grandparents, great support from family, and the kids have been on every set: they've seen me play Gollum, King Kong, Captain Haddock, the lot. They totally get it, and they want to go into the business. Ruby, my daughter, is very keen to become an actress. Andy Serkis daughter kings mother For me, I've never drawn a distinction between live-action acting and performance-capture acting. It is purely a technology. Andy Serkis technology acting action 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. Andy Serkis panthers black different More and more good actors are now transmigrating into the videogame space and playing roles there because it's where my generation of kids get stories from. Andy Serkis playing-roles space kids I can get on with all different sorts of people, and I never feel homesick, particularly, or I've never felt kind of patriotic towards any one country. Andy Serkis patriotic country people My dad was working abroad, in Iraq, and he was a doctor. We used to go and visit him, in Baghdad, off and on. For the first ten years of my life, we used to go backwards and forwards to Baghdad, so that was quite amazing. I spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East. Andy Serkis doctors dad years People are mystified by it and so they kind of think, the acting community thinks they're gonna be replaced by CG characters and animators think they're gonna be replaced by performance capture (and) a lot of directors, particularly European directors, who have no experience of it. Andy Serkis character people thinking I am a bit evangelical, I know, but performance-capture is still misunderstood. Andy Serkis misunderstood capture performances I stayed in Baghdad every summer until I was 14. My dad's sister is still there, but many of my relatives have managed to get out. People forget that there are still people there who are not radicalized in any particular direction, trying to live normal lives in a very difficult situation. Andy Serkis difficult-situations dad summer 'The Hobbit' was one of the first biggish books I ever read. I remember vividly the 'riddles in the dark' passage, and it meant a lot to me to finally get to play it after all these years. Andy Serkis dark book years 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. Andy Serkis emotional integrity character 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. Andy Serkis lord book way In 'Tintin,' it's like a live-action role. You're living and breathing and making decisions for that character from page 1 to page 120, the whole emotional arc. In an animated movie, it's a committee decision. There are 50 people creating that character. You're responsible for a small part. Andy Serkis creating emotional character You're watching your kids playing football and you're not present. It's like the worst... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with. Andy Serkis struggle football kids 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. Andy Serkis would-be way thinking It's a different rhythm than most movies. For a lot of the actors, you're 12,000 miles away from home. It becomes a way of life - getting up at five in the morning, shooting every day, day in day out, for 270 days. The new cast playing the dwarves were carrying incredibly heavy weights in their suits, they sat through hours of make-up every day. So it's quite challenging from a stamina point of view. Andy Serkis dwarves home morning People think, 'Oh, well how can 'The Hobbit,' which is one book, become three films?' But you can take one line from an appendice and it turns into a whole sequence. Andy Serkis book people thinking The learning curve is 'The Hobbit' is being shot in 3D. Andy Serkis learning-curve curves shots
