The character of Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings movies was famously an all-CG creation by a team of animators at Weta Digital. Yet those animators would no doubt have been at a loss, had master actor Andy Serkis not been there to dance around in a spandex suit showing them how fantastical creatures act.
In an interview with The Guardian over the weekend, Serkis revealed that his preparation to be the model for the CG character Gollum went further than green clothing covered in ping pong balls. No sir, in order to play Gollum he had to be Gollum.
“I used to walk on all fours off set when we were filming Lord of the Rings,” Serkis told The Guardian. For hours. Off set.
“I spent a lot of time in preparation for that; I would go off for walks on all fours for hours. I did occasionally come into contact with other people, so I just had to pretend I was looking for something. It’s fair to say that’s pretty method.”
Method, yes, that’s definitely the word I’d use for it. And it totally worked out! Why study an animal that walks on all fours to draw a quadripedal creature when you can study an actor? The actor has so much more experience acting.
I like to imagine Andy Serkis’s kid’s friends popping over to play some video games and when they open the door, Andy Serkis is there in his underpants, perched on the back of the couch biting into a whole raw fish. “Go away! Can’t you see I’m WORKING?!”
Forget the Snyder cut of Justice League, give me the pre-CG cut of Lord Of The Rings with Andy Serkis in full leotard.