“My agent told me they were shooting in New Zealand and wanted to audition for the voice of a digital character. I said, Jesus, there must be 12 or 13 great roles, can’t you set me up for something good? There must be some acting role there – said Andy Serkis during a meeting with fans, and people gathered in the room laughed sincerely. “I really didn’t know, didn’t understand what was behind all this,” Serkis explained.
They offered him the role of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. He was furious
“Anyway, it turned out to be Gollum.” He’s a great character! But he doesn’t speak in a voice that an actor can come up with right away, that’s not how it works. I’ve never done anything like this before either, so I didn’t know how to play it. But I was inspired by my cat Dizz – – When I was wondering what a voice that comes from physicality should sound like, which is the result of an internal psychological process filled with pain, guilt and obsession. I thought the voice was trapped in his throat. It’s called Gollum because of the sounds it makes, so I have to make something that sounds like that,’ described Serkis, who often uses techniques from the Stanislavski method in his work.
– Then my cat came in and literally coughed up a ball of fur in front of me. This is the most holy truth – I looked at his quivering back and thought it was brilliant. I really liked it and I started to nod like that myself. And he started making that sound when he spit out his fur, and I thought that was even better. And that’s how I found this voice, I went to the audition – he summed up the turning point of his career. Interestingly, originally Peter Jackson assumed that Serkis would only do voice acting. Meanwhile, the actor came to the conclusion that he would achieve the best effect if he moved like his character. When Jackson saw it, he couldn’t hide his surprise and delight. It was then that he decided that they would use the motion capture technology, which was pioneering at the time.
Serkis re-enacted the entire scene twice. First with other cast members in the set design, and then in a special costume with appropriate markers all over his body, he repeated the sequence in a studio adapted for it. The operator also shot it with a special camera. Later, the film material created in this way was taken into the workshop by graphic designers and the recorded movement of point markers was superimposed on the generated character animation.
The technological process was therefore breakneck, and often ridiculed in the industry and considered something insulting to professional actors. Since then, the approach has changed a lot, let’s recall that James Cameron used motion capture technology in the filming of the blockbuster “Avatar”. Let’s not forget that in total all three parts of “The Lord of the Rings” received 30 nominations for Oscars, of which the creators won as many as 17 statuettes. Andy Serkis, in turn, received an Empire Award and two Saturns for pioneering roles using motion capture technology.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
