It's fair to say though, that Serkis has had a huge impact on the way in which performance-capture technology is perceived by the industry and audiences alike. Gollum was never simply a CGI creation, but a bonafide character whose emotion and presence was felt just as keenly as that of any flesh and blood player in the epic trilogy. And since, Serkis has gone on to be nominated for countless awards for playing similarly created characters.
So returning to the role that made him must hold with it a bit of pressure for the actor...
"Gollum’s never really gone too far away from me because he’s indelibly kind of printed into my DNA now, I think," Serkis told the LA Times in a recent interview. "I’ll tell you what was weird is going back and playing a character that has been so sort of absorbed into public consciousness that you almost don’t feel like you own it anymore. And to sort of gather it back — I mean, I did feel, I think, probably in the first couple of days going back into it that I was sort of doing a weird impersonation of him rather than being him because there have been so many spoofs and people’s impersonations and so on, and some people’s impersonations are really great. And I’m kind of thinking, 'Oh gosh, that’s how to do it, yeah.' And you know, then you get back into it. … Meaningfully getting back into it was really exciting.
"For me, I’ve never drawn a distinction between live-action acting and performance-capture acting. It is purely a technology. It’s a bunch of cameras that can record the actor’s performance in a different way. In terms of animation, animators are actors as well. Performance capture is such a liberating tool. I am quite evangelical about it to other actors because I think it’s such a wonderful — it’s a magic suit you put on that allows you to play anything regardless of your size, your sex, your color, whatever you are. As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything. so I long for it to be accepted by the acting profession so that it can proliferate."
One of the things that made Gollum so distinctive was his voice - will Serkis be able to recreate those tricksy tones?"I think my vocal chords are so thrashed that I don’t really feel anything anymore there," mused the actor. "During Lord of the Rings, I used to have to drink tons of what we call Gollum juice, which was lemon and honey and ginger. And actually when I went back to do The Hobbit this time, to reprise the role, I did , probably kind of more romantically and sort of nostalgically, get people to whip up a few bowls of Gollum juice which I used to drink. But it doesn’t really hurt, to be honest, anymore."
Of course, the return to Middle Earth hasn't simply meant revisiting this character for Serkis. The continuation of his longtime collaboration with Jackson now means stepping in to the boss' chair as second unit director. And it seems the bromance between the pair isn't likely to end anytime soon...
"Peter’s just been the most phenomenal mentor, supporter, friend, collaborator. I cherish working with him so much, and this incredible journey that he’s sort of set me off on, really. Because I’m working on The Hobbit not only as Gollum, but I’m directing the second unit."
"I actually went down there for two weeks to reprise the role of Gollum, and I basically stayed for a year to direct the second unit. So that’s thrilling. I’m really, really enjoying that and getting a chance to work with him from another angle. I’m being his kind of eyes and years for the second unit, really. We’ve just been on location for two months shooting the most beautiful places in New Zealand. That’s been extraordinary. I love working with Pete, and everything that he’s created at WETA. The whole team, the whole outfit in New Zealand in Wellington, is a very, very special, wonderful place that I keep willingly returning to."
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits cinemas on 14 December, 2012.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment