Human factor

For perhaps anyone but Andy Serkis, the notion of getting into a special suit covered in reflective dots and connected to a computer that slavishly tracked one’s every nervous twitter would indicate some sort of worrisome hospital episode. But in the world of motion-capture technology for the movies, such was the U.K.-born actor’s lot if he was to bring a chilling flesh-and-blood reality to the computer-generated Gollum for Peter Jackson’s mammoth adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings.” The result has been hailed as a breakthrough in merging CGI with an actor’s talents.

Now the 39-year-old Serkis, whose storied acting career includes playing Charles Dickens’ Bill Sykes for a television “Oliver Twist” and Shakespeare’s Iago on the stage, has published a diary of sorts covering the four-year process of playing Tolkien’s wretched, ring-obsessed creature, called “Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic.”

Did anyone in particular convince you to write a book about your experience?

Predominantly [co-screenwriter] Fran Walsh. It was during post-production for “The Two Towers” in early 2002 that Fran said, “You should really get your ideas down and properly chart it.”

Was that because the way to realize Gollum was constantly changing?

When Pete set out to do Gollum, he knew it was going to be a CG character, and he wanted it to be driven by an actor. Gollum’s psychologically complex. You couldn’t just have a tennis ball on a stick acting against Elijah Wood and Sean Astin. But Pete didn’t know how the day-to-day would be on the set until we started. In the early stages, Gollum was going to be much more key-frame animated: I would provide more of the vocal sense of the character, but in actual fact I would be replaced by an animator who would draw Gollum going over rocks, etc. But a considerable shift took place once we started on set. Basically, the only way I could do the part was to inhabit the character entirely: physically, mentally, vocally, all in one.

Did playing such a conflicted personality ever lead you to wonder if there are two Andy Serkises?

(Laughs) I know there are two, at least two, on a daily basis. I talk to myself all the time, and I know I can flip on the turn of a sixpence between being certifiable and vaguely normal. Whether that’s being an actor, I don’t know. But the people who have responded to the character by saying, “That’s like me,” that’s one of the most rewarding things. Because that was really the objective, to humanize him as much as possible. The drug addiction analogy worked for me. People understand addiction, from whether they smoke and can’t wait to get outside to get a cigarette, or heroin addicts, alcoholics. Gollum is really an embodiment of what the ring does to an individual.

After all the blue-suit work, it must have been exciting to be yourself onscreen in the opening of “Return of the King,” when we see the pre-Gollum Smeagol succumb to the ring.

That sequence was going to be in “The Two Towers,” but Peter decided that he wanted to let the audience live with Gollum for a year or so, let him seep into the public consciousness, before revealing the true origins of the character. I thought it was a clever move. It’s like taking you back to the Shire, to the days before the ring came and screwed everybody up.

Is there anything in an actor’s career that is the equivalent of the ring, something powerful yet dangerous? Fame, perhaps?

Yeah, I guess the aphrodisiac of losing yourself within the need, the lust for being in the public eye all the time. It’s weird because having played the role this way, I still have a huge amount of anonymity. But I know, when we left New Zealand, with 125,000 fans screaming at you, it was like being in the Beatles. I just didn’t expect to be recognized at all. And people have said to me, “God, it must be awful not being recognized.” Like it’s the be-all, end-all of acting. But as an actor, I really enjoy disguise. This was like an extension of that to the nth degree.

Do your kids know that you’re Gollum?

Ruby’s 5 now, and Sonny’s 3, and they know. They see Gollum going past on a bus advertising the DVD and they go “Dad!” And then everybody looks at them like they’re very strange. (Laughs) But the book is partly there to explain to them, when I’m old and looking like Gollum himself, exactly what I’ve been doing while they’ve been growing up.

-- Robert Abele