Perhaps you don’t yet know Andy Serkis by his name. Or by his face. But he’s an actor we’ve all seen. He isn’t the answer to a riddle. He’s a wizard within movie magic. With facial dot sensors and motion-capture suits, Serkis played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and again for the Hobbit trilogy), Kong in King Kong, and perhaps most impressively, Caesar in the new Planet of the Apes prequels.
Serkis was so successful with his creation of Caesar in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes that most audiences didn’t even want to root for the humans in their bridge battle with the apes. Technology has indeed advanced. But, for Serkis’ performance craft, perhaps most telling was that 20th Century Fox launched a legitimate Oscar campaign for his performance, and that as more acclaim has come Serkis’ way, the acting branch is actually embracing motion-capture within their creaky, dusty, acting wings of prestige (Benedict Cumberbatch for The Hobbit, Toby Kebell for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers, etc).
Related: Does the New ‘Apes’ Have the Best CGI Ever?
Giddily, we got to chat with Serkis about the evolution of his medium in conjuncture with the Blu-ray release of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Let’s stress that meeting Serkis is a rare life occasion. How often do you actually get to chat with the numero uno, top dog (ape) of their field? Well, maybe you get to all the time. But we don’t. Let’s continue. Prior to meeting with Serkis, CraveOnline was screened some of the Blu-ray behind the scenes bonus features of how the filmmakers captured the ape community in Dawn (director Matt Reeves described the setting as looking like a weird bondage film full of gray gimps). In our personal sit down, Serkis told us about how the medium allowed him to strip stereotypes of performance, how it’s affected his seated posture and how Dawn fits into a changing international world.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is released on Blu-ray — full of supplemental features — on Tuesday, December 2.
Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.
