Thirteen years ago, British actor Andy Serkis received a phone call from his agent, who asked him if he was interested in auditioning for a three-week job supplying the voice of an animated character in director Peter Jackson’s trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.”
It seems like a no-brainer now, but Serkis rejected the offer. He instructed his agent to call back when he found something better.
Well, it doesn’t get any better than playing Gollum, and Serkis concedes now that he has been thankful every day of the last 13 years that he changed his mind about playing the character that changed his life.
Playing Gollum in three films that grossed nearly $3 billion at the box office and collected 17 Oscars, including a best picture nod for “The Return of the King,” not only led to roles in “King Kong” (the title character and Lumpy, the ship’s cook), “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (Caesar) and Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” (Captain Haddock), but it offered a chance to reprise his celebrated role of Gollum in Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which opens Friday.
The new film, which starts another trilogy, is based on the 1937 fantasy novel written by J.R.R. Tolkien, which was penned years before “The Lord of the Rings.”
Set in Middle Earth 60 years before the previous trilogy, the new film follows hobbit Bilbo Baggins (played by Martin Freeman), the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a group of tough dwarfs as they embark on a quest to retake the dwarf’s homeland from a murderous dragon.
During the journey, Baggins is confronted by Gollum, who is a spry 540-year-old who lives a comfortable life in the caves, doing little more than hunting and eating goblins. He believes he is protected by a magic ring, which he doesn’t realize has been lost. Baggins, not appreciating that pocketing the ring he found will lead to many more movies, escapes by besting Gollum in a game of riddles.
Four-time Oscar winner Joe Letteri, who heads the visual effects team that created Gollum, said he and his team toyed with the idea of changing Gollum’s appearance to make him look younger. They even tried adding teeth and hair, but felt that the character didn’t look right. In the end, they removed a few scars (a result of him being captured and tortured 60 years later in the first trilogy) and left his physicality unchanged.
However, the computer-generated Gollum is still the crown jewel of a filmmaking process called “performance-capture,” in which Serkis wears a suit covered with markers that send signals to a special camera that captures the actor’s performance. However, with technological advances since the first trilogy, Letteri said the process has been streamlined so that more subtleties in the actor’s performance could be filmed.
Serkis is not exclusively a performance-capture actor (you can see him act more traditionally in “The Prestige,” “13 Going on 30” and the 2010 film “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”), but he has embraced the new technology. He has started his own London-based performance capture studio, and already has acquired two literary properties to produce at the studio, including George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” Serkis, who served as 2nd unit director on “The Hobbit,” will direct “Animal Farm.”
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: I know it’s been quite a while, but can you remember the original audition for Gollum?
ANDY SERKIS: Yes, of course.
Q. What were your thoughts when you were asked to audition for this role?
A. My first encounter with the role that would change my life and career was a call from my agent, who informed me that they were looking for someone to voice a character, and that it would be about three weeks’ work.
Q. A three-week job that turned into a 13-year career?
A. (laughs) That’s right.
Q. What did you say to your agent?
A. I asked him if he couldn’t come up with something proper.
Q. It didn’t sound appealing?
A. I hadn’t read “The Hobbit” so I wasn’t familiar with Gollum. Besides, I wasn’t the sort of actor who had done voice work. I wasn’t a voice actor. I had a regular stage and film acting career. The more research I did on “The Hobbit,” however, the more intrigued I got with the character.
Q. It’s interesting that you said you hadn’t performed voice work before because the distinct voice you use for Gollum has become somewhat iconic. Where did that originate?
A. Actually, I took that voice from the sound of a cat coughing up a fur ball.
Q. Any particular cat?
A. Yes, it was one of my three cats. He threw up on our kitchen floor, and the rest is history (laughs).
Q. Did you bring that voice with you to the first audition?
A. Yes, and then I jumped up in a chair and crouched like a cat. I think there is a tape of that first audition on one of the DVDs for “The Lord of the Rings.”
Q. Jumping ahead a bit in time, do you remember how surprised you were when Peter Jackson informed you that he was planning to make “The Hobbit?”
A. There had been whisperings forever on that so it wasn’t much of a surprise.
Q. Was there any hesitation on your part to return to the character after having played him in three films?
A. Not as such. Gollum was always present in the background, so he never went away for me. When people walk up to you and do Gollum impressions all the time, it never really goes away (laughs).
Q. I will spare you my impression of Gollum saying “My precious.”
A. Thank you.
Q. When I spoke to Joe Letteri, he explained that except for the removal of a few scars, there was no real change in Gollum’s appearance. But I was wondering if there were any changes in how you played him as a relatively young 540-year-old, instead of a 600-year-old.
A. The acting was not different, although he was not driven by revenge yet, and that always weighed heavily on him. He was not a tortured soul at this point.
Q. In the new film, I think we get to see even clearer the schizophrenic nature of this character. He is warm and cuddly one moment, and dangerous the next. He’s a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I suspect is a wonderful challenge for an actor.
A. Yes, it is a fantastic role. Tolkien wrote such an amazing character, and it has evolved in the screenwriting process to a whole other level. (Screenwriters) Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter took the character to psychological depths not originally imagined.
Q. Could you describe the difference technically in how Gollum was filmed this time as compared to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy?
A. In “The Lord of the Rings,” they would shoot me with a live-action camera, and then I’d have to go back so they could shoot me again with a performance action camera. And then my facial expressions would be animated later. This time, I only had to do the scene once, and they would shoot me with live-action cameras and performance action cameras at the same time. I still had to wear a one-piece suit with markers all over it but the camera was able to pick up more subtle facial expressions this time.
Q. Did you have to wear any other equipment besides the Spandex suit with the markers?
A. I had to wear a head-mounted camera and a mike pack.
Q. A lot of people don’t realize that even with the technology, you’re still acting a role. In your scenes with Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins, you are there on the set with him performing like any other actor.
A. Absolutely. To be clear, the performance action cameras roll the same time as the live-action cameras. The performance is exactly as it would be with any two actors in any movie scene.
Q. What is the legacy of Gollum?
A. Before I became an actor, I was very much interested in the visual arts. This strange, convoluted and ultimately rewarding journey with Gollum has resulted in a melding of traditional acting with the visual arts, and I believe it will be the essential core to the next generation of storytelling. And when you take away all the effects, it is all about telling stories. That’s what movies are, and nothing will change that.
Q. One final question; the film was shot at 48 frames a second, which is double the normal speed. The process is a bit controversial, and not everyone likes it. I was wondering how you felt about it.
A. I think it’s beautiful, but it’s definitely an aesthetic choice. I think it takes time for people to get used to it, like any other technological advance. I liken it to when vinyl gave way to CDs. Some people embraced it right away, while others took some time to grow accustomed to it.
Q. And some people still hate CDs.
A. (laughs) That’s true.
Contact the writer: 714-796-5051, ext. 1110, or bkoltnow@ocregister.com
