ANDY SERKIS – BAFTA'S OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA

Portrait by BAFTA/Phil Fisk

ANDY SERKIS – OUTSTANDING BRITISH CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA

WORDS BY NEIL SMITH

THROUGH THE CREATION OF SUCH characters as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series, Caesar in the Planet of the Apes trilogy and the titular gorilla in 2005’s King Kong, the recipient of this year’s Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award, one of BAFTA’s highest honours, has both pioneered the evolving art of performance capture (Pcap, or sometimes known as MoCap) and widened the parameters of what it means to be an actor in the 21st century. It is surprising to learn then that the future filmmaker born Andrew Clement Serkis in April 1964 had no intention of becoming an actor when he was growing up and was heading towards a different career when the performing bug struck.

“I went to college to study visual arts and in my first year had to choose a subsidiary subject,” Serkis reveals. “There was a very strong theatre studies department at the University of Lancaster, so I did a subsidiary course in theatre. Gradually I started to take on acting roles, which made me realise that being on stage, rather than being behind a drawing board or easel, was what I wanted to do. I was very fortunate that I was able to change my degree to one that involved all aspects of theatre design and movement.”

Starting out at the Duke’s Playhouse in Lancaster under the tutelage of Jonathan Petherbridge, Serkis would soon accrue a wealth of theatre credits that included roles at the Royal Exchange in Manchester (where he met his future wife, Lorraine Ashbourne) and London’s Royal Court (where he originated the part of Potts in Jez Butterworth’s debut play, Mojo). Television parts also came his way, as did a small yet memorable role in Mike Leigh’s 1997 film Career Girls. “Mike’s process was invaluable and I learned an enormous amount from doing it,” he recalls. “You give yourself to this extraordinary process of deep-diving into the life of the role you’re playing, without knowing what the outcome might be.” (Serkis would collaborate with Leigh again on Topsy-Turvy, his 1999 film about Gilbert and Sullivan.)

Around the turn of the century, however, an entirely new opportunity came Serkis’ way when he was approached to voice the role of corrupted halfling Gollum in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. “I didn’t consider myself a voice actor, so I was sort of ambivalent about it,” Serkis admits. “But Peter was interested in using a new technology called motion capture that was in its very early stages, and I was fascinated by that.”

Working on The Lord of the Rings films saw Serkis act as a physical presence on the New Zealand set, supplying a reference for their visual effects artists and digital animators to create a computer-generated Gollum. “I loved the concept of being able to disappear inside a character to the point you are completely unrecognisable,” he explains. “I’d always loved the notion of transformation as an actor, but doing it this way offered a great sense of freedom.”

Serkis’ portrayal of Gollum, a treacherous yet pitiable outcast consumed by his desire for his “precious” One Ring, brought him worldwide acclaim and made him the obvious choice to be Kong in Jackson’s subsequent epic. That in turn led to his involvement in the rebooted Planet of the Apes films, playing a super-intelligent primate who goes from laboratory experiment to revolutionary leader over the course of three movies.

“Performance capture was the only way you could have achieved that,” says Serkis. “Yet, it’s not just a generic ape or gorilla – you’re playing a very specific role. Obviously, if you are playing a creature you learn their behaviour and physicality. But at the end of the day, you are playing a character that only happens to be from the animal world.”

Serkis’ extensive experience in the performance capture sphere saw him increasingly sought after by various film and game projects. This soon made him aware how much the UK needed a facility as advanced and knowledgeable as the ones he’d witnessed in New Zealand. “There wasn’t a performance studio in the UK that had the quality, equipment, understanding and knowledge base I had experienced,” he explains. “I realised at that point I felt behoven to start some kind of experimental workspace-slash-performance capture studio to enhance work flow and push forward.”

The result was The Imaginarium, a production company-cum studio space in west London dedicated to emerging technologies and, what Serkis describes as, “next generation storytelling” in film, television, games and theatre.

Founding The Imaginarium in 2012 with his producing partner Jonathan Cavendish, together with his experience of directing second unit on Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, made Serkis’ transition to director a formality. Yet, he could hardly have chosen two more diverse projects for his two debut films – Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018), an exploration of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book stories using performance capture technology, and Breathe (2017), a drama inspired by Diana Cavendish’s polio-afflicted father, Robin. “It all depends on the stories you want to tell,” says Serkis, recently to be found directing Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams in Venom 2 (slated for release in 2020). “We’re in a really fortunate position, and I feel very lucky to be able to choose interesting projects to work on.”

With Danai Gurira at the EE British Academy Film Awards 2019

BAFTA/Guy Levy

Previously nominated for BAFTAs for playing Ian Brady in Longford (2006) and Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010), Serkis says it is “very gratifying” to be recognised for a body of work that runs the gamut from independent British cinema to the blockbuster Star Wars and Marvel franchises. “It’s always an honour to be accoladed, especially by BAFTA,” he says. “I’ve had a long association with BAFTA over the years and it’s an extraordinary organisation.”

As the father of three budding actors, meanwhile, he is ideally placed to offer advice to those hoping to follow in his footsteps. “Know why you do it,” Serkis declares. “It’s tempting to get caught up in the superficiality and Instagram of it all, so it helps to have a specific goal.”

Neil Smith is a journalist, critic and contributing editor of Total Film