Andy Serkis Quotes

#1. People used to say, 'Andy Serkis lent his movements to Gollum,' and now they say, 'Andy Serkis played Caesar.' That's a significant leap.

Andy Serkis

#2. I've been told that some guy wrote something like, 'Andy Serkis does everything, animators do nothing.' Of course I never in a million years said that, wouldn't ever say that. It's not within my understanding of filmmaking to ever say anything like that.

Andy Serkis

#3. Gollum's never really gone too far away from me because he's indelibly kind of printed into my DNA now, I think.

Andy Serkis

#4. I'm quite contrary. If people agree on something, I tend to gravitate the other way by my nature. I don't like to be told what to do. I think it goes back to school. I like to do things I want to do and I really don't like doing what I don't want to do.

Andy Serkis

#5. You could go so wrong with a 'Planet of the Apes' reboot; you could make it melodramatic, you could make it campy, you could fall into so many traps with it.

Andy Serkis

#6. For me, I've never drawn a distinction between live-action acting and performance-capture acting. It is purely a technology.

Andy Serkis

#7. More and more good actors are now transmigrating into the videogame space and playing roles there because it's where my generation of kids get stories from.

Andy Serkis

#8. My livelihood depends on the art of animators.

Andy Serkis

#9. No matter how extreme things get, it still has that ring of truth about it that backs the characters - even though they're despicable and what they're doing isn't right you still care for their fate.

Andy Serkis

#10. In 'Tintin,' it's like a live-action role. You're living and breathing and making decisions for that character from page 1 to page 120, the whole emotional arc. In an animated movie, it's a committee decision. There are 50 people creating that character. You're responsible for a small part.

Andy Serkis

#11. 'How To Train your Dragon 2' is an amazing film. I think it's an extraordinary film. The animation in it is fantastic.

Andy Serkis

#12. Performance capture is a technology, not a genre; it's just another way of recording an actor's performance.

Andy Serkis

#13. Our family were outsiders, and I've always had a sense of the outsider, the underdog, and a strong sense of justice towards people who are excluded.

Andy Serkis

#14. I've done a lot of films that are purely live-action roles, and even if I hadn't come across performance capture as a technology, I think I'd always consider myself a sort of mercurial actor.

Andy Serkis

#15. I'd like to think that we strive in film and theatre to tell great stories, and I believe in the power of storytelling in our culture.

Andy Serkis

#16. I've done a fair amount of that stuff ... when we did Lord of the Rings the transformation sequence from Smeagol to Gollum was a 19-hour make-up job. You have to have a kind of zen button that you press and allow the mind to be focused in a certain way.

Andy Serkis

#17. I had to relearn how to ride a horse like an ape. I had to change how I jumped off and how I gripped them with my thighs and distribute my weight differently.

Andy Serkis

#18. When you do animation - well, straightforward animation, although it's not straightforward - the voice for a character or something, they're always singular experiences, really.

Andy Serkis

#19. Any sort of role requires a certain amount of research and embodiment of the character and psychological investigation.

Andy Serkis

#20. They [traditional studios] probably don't understand is that it's a genuine advancement in the actor's tradition. And you know, the tradition and craft of acting. And it's the latest step. You know, we, we tend to find forms of delivering stories that fit our times.

Andy Serkis

#21. Mountaineering has always been a huge hobby of mine.

Andy Serkis

#22. Gorillas have a belch vocalization, which is sort of like, 'I'm OK, you're OK.' They do a pig grunt, which is reprimanding. They sing, they laugh, and they hoot, which grows into a chest-beating display.

Andy Serkis

#23. What's fantastic is that there's a real growing appreciation for performance-capture technology as a tool for acting.

Andy Serkis

#24. Did you happen to catch the film I did between 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Kong?' It was a nice little Jennifer Garner comedy, '13 Going on 30,' and I play her boss. In my big scene, I get to moonwalk - pretty well, I thought - to Michael Jackson.

Andy Serkis

#25. I spent a lot of time on my own working out the physical vocabulary for how Gollum moved. As I say, I drew on a lot of Tolkein's descriptions of how he moves, but also the conceptual artist sketches.

Andy Serkis

#26. I'd already started directing short films when we were doing 'Lord of the Rings,' then videogame projects.

Andy Serkis

#27. Be magnificent. Life's short. Get out there. You can do it. Everyone can do it. Everyone.

Andy Serkis

#28. Gorilla tourism is vital to Rwanda's economy: It's the third highest source of income.

Andy Serkis

#29. Performance capture is a genre of acting which is not going to go away, it's going to proliferate more and more. I'm passionate about it, and I love it. It's the most liberating tool an actor has, because you are not limited by your own physicality, look, or color of your eyes.

Andy Serkis

#30. I'm in the early stages of a film called 'Freezing Time' about Eadweard Muybridge, the Victorian photographer who was really the forefather of cinema. Digital animators still treat his images like the Bible. He was a very obsessed man.

Andy Serkis

#31. People will come up to me and try and be secretive and say, 'Can you do the Gollum voice for me?' And I'm like, 'Are you kidding? It's 8:30 in the morning on the Victoria Line.'

Andy Serkis

#32. On lower budget things you're still working collaboratively, but the investment and your level of creative importance is higher on something like this.

Andy Serkis

#33. Everybody thinks performance capture is about thrashing around and doing a lots of movement, but it's actually about being able to contain and think and be believed in a close-up, as much as anything else.

Andy Serkis

#34. I do have anger management issues. Not clinical. Probably no more than most people.

Andy Serkis

#35. And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.

Andy Serkis

#36. The art of transformation is a very important thing to me, and I always believe I can say something more truthful through characters that are further away from me.

Andy Serkis

#37. I'm working from home a lot. That's very unusual because I'm away a lot, sometimes working on the other side of the world for long periods of time. So, it's hard to manage in the sense that I want to be the best dad I can be but it's almost harder when you have your kids outside the door.

Andy Serkis

#38. My dad was working abroad, in Iraq, and he was a doctor. We used to go and visit him, in Baghdad, off and on. For the first ten years of my life, we used to go backwards and forwards to Baghdad, so that was quite amazing. I spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East.

Andy Serkis

#39. Performance capture, for me, is finding the essence of a performance.

Andy Serkis

#40. I don't want to play a voice.

Andy Serkis

#41. My very, very first moment on set on 'Lord of the Rings' in 2000 was me in a lycra suit, six and a half thousand feet up on a mountain in New Zealand, standing in front of 250 crew who were all wondering what I was doing - myself included.

Andy Serkis

#42. The whole chameleon thing about acting. That's why I'm moving towards directing - it's a much more healthy occupation.

Andy Serkis

#43. Hoodwink is a product of his environment. He grew up in Belfast, he was part of the UDA and he fought for what he believed in - or was brainwashed into believing - because of the people that surrounded him.

Andy Serkis

#44. Actors' performances do not stand alone in any film, live action or whatever.

Andy Serkis

#45. Second films are, you know, like 'difficult second albums', so it's a tricky position to be in but I think he's made a highly accomplished film.

Andy Serkis

#46. I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.

Andy Serkis

#47. If 'The Hobbit' happens - and there's reason to believe that it will - then I think I'm in with a chance! Gollum is very much part of 'The Hobbit,' after all.

Andy Serkis

#48. Having done a lot of theater, I'm used to sustaining characters over long periods of time.

Andy Serkis

#49. Great actors like Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page and Samuel L. Jackson will go and do a videogame, because they understand that storytelling isn't just necessarily about filmmaking.

Andy Serkis

#50. I don't see a difference between playing a performance capture role and a live action role, they're just characters to me at the end of the day and I'm an actor who wants to explore those characters in fantastically written scripts. The only caveat is a good story is a good character.

Andy Serkis

#51. A lot of people have asked me to do answer phone messages for them.

Andy Serkis

#52. I think when actors run away from their work that they're slightly crazy, really!

Andy Serkis

#53. I think parenting is very different now. We're totally governed by our children!

Andy Serkis

#54. J.J. Abrams is an all-time hero of mine, really lovely to be working with him.

Andy Serkis

#55. What you can do with visual effects is enhance the look of the character, but the actual integrity of the emotional performance and the way the character's facial expressions work, that is what is going to be created on the day with other actors and the director.

Andy Serkis

#56. I think I spend most of my time not living in reality, actually.

Andy Serkis

#57. The learning curve is 'The Hobbit' is being shot in 3D.

Andy Serkis

#58. I suppose the biggest strain was that Hoodwink is a high-octane character and he's up there like all the time. Once he's on his journey there's no let up for the man, so I actually found it a massively exhausting job to keep that level up.

Andy Serkis

#59. I remember kind of doing early acting and thinking, 'God, they don't paint behind the sets.' It's a bit of a shame, really - 'Oh, what's on the other side of this wall? Oh, you can see the plywood.' I was really disappointed. I just thought that these things were real, from watching things as a kid.

Andy Serkis

#60. In performance capture roles, it's not a committee of animators that author the role, it's the actor. I think that's a significant thing for people to understand.

Andy Serkis

#61. I guess I just tend to feel at home wherever I go.

Andy Serkis

#62. Gollum is my picture of Dorian Gray. He will be with me for the rest of life, and I will grow to look more like him as I get older.

Andy Serkis

#63. I had a cat called Dizz, after Dizzy Gillespie.

Andy Serkis

#64. I want to link together ancient forms of storytelling and the future.

Andy Serkis

#65. Every age has its storytelling form, and video gaming is a huge part of our culture. You can ignore or embrace video games and imbue them with the best artistic quality. People are enthralled with video games in the same way as other people love the cinema or theatre.

Andy Serkis

#66. You're watching your kids playing football, and you're not present. It's like the worst ... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with.

Andy Serkis

#67. I think even back as far as 'Lord of the Rings,' there was always the chance that 'The Hobbit' would be made, even way back then. Of course at that point, Peter Jackson didn't probably think at that point that he'd be directing it.

Andy Serkis

#68. I've always been really in touch with my primal instincts. In my profession, you have to be.

Andy Serkis

#69. Over the years, people have asked me, 'Do you think there should be a separate category for acting in the digital realm? Or hybrid sort of awards for digital characters?' and so on. And I've always really maintained that I don't believe so.

Andy Serkis

#70. I've always thought of acting as a tool to change society. I watch a lot of actors and I see panic in their eyes because they don't know why they act and I know why I act. Whether I'm a good or a bad actor, I know why I do it.

Andy Serkis

#71. I love acting and certainly won't give it up, but it's part of a bigger canvas for me now.

Andy Serkis

#72. If you are not moved by the character, no amount of CGI will give you a performance that is emotionally engaging or devastating - what a live-action performance does.

Andy Serkis

#73. (The) process of acting is no different to conventional screen acting, in that it's providing a perfect interface between the director and the performer. So there's no sort of long way around a viral committee of animators.

Andy Serkis

#74. I think the actors in 'Greystoke' were amazing. They had a really good performance coach called Peter Elliott who's, of his time, one of the greatest simian performance coaches for actors.

Andy Serkis

#75. I think we can be very narrow-minded in this country; you see something that someone's done and immediately want them to do the same thing again - but if they don't, they're criticised for not doing the same thing again, but if they do they're just repeating themselves.

Andy Serkis

#76. Gollum is Gollum - though in 'Lord of the Rings' he's 600 years old and in 'The Hobbit' he's 540, so he looks a little bit more handsome.

Andy Serkis

#77. 35mm film isn't ticking away so it's subconscious - performances are allowed to breathe in a much more real way I think.

Andy Serkis

#78. I think there will always be a particular generation of actors who ... think that they're going to be replaced by robots. But certainly the emerging actors ... understand that that's part of the craft.

Andy Serkis

#79. I think I'd like to be a lion tamer, actually. That - that would provide the most audience entertainment if something went really badly.

Andy Serkis

#80. Looking back, when I was Gollum, I suppose I did break the mold to a certain extent. I'm proud, and very thrilled, to be a part of that.

Andy Serkis

#81. But I think there's something wonderful and extraordinary about climbing on your own and just that kind of relationship to the environment. I'm very addicted to the mountains. You know, so, I do like that solitude.

Andy Serkis

#82. That's why I ended up going to Lancaster University, because they had a visual arts course, and in the first year it was like a broad visual arts course in sculpture, painting, graphics - all of that.

Andy Serkis

#83. Just being an ape is a workout.

Andy Serkis

#84. Working from home is so, so hard because I want to be present for them and yet there's so much to do work-wise. That's the biggest challenge for me.

Andy Serkis

#85. The great thing about performance capture is you can go off, and then, without changing costume, you can become another character.

Andy Serkis

#86. As I started to research gorillas, I began to understand that they're all totally individual and idiosyncratic, and they have their own personalities.

Andy Serkis

#87. The reason that some motion-capture films don't work is if the scripts are not good, and the characters aren't engaging, then you don't believe in the journey, and you're not connected to it. It's not the technology's fault.

Andy Serkis

#88. Originally when I went off to work on 'The Lord of The Rings' I got a call from my agent saying that I was just going to do a voice. But I couldn't really approach it like that. To get Gollum's voice I had to play the character.

Andy Serkis

#89. Playing a character in a video game is different to other performances because your character can't lead the audience of players in one direction.

Andy Serkis

#90. Gollum is entirely based on the notion of addiction. The way that the ring pervades him, makes him craving, lustful, depletes him physically, psychologically and mentally.

Andy Serkis

#91. I play saxophone, I play tenor sax.

Andy Serkis

#92. I am a bit evangelical, I know, but performance-capture is still misunderstood.

Andy Serkis

#93. Gollum has a weak personality and isn't able to cope with the power of the ring.

Andy Serkis

#94. I've always been a huge fan of Charles Lawton's performance in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' so somewhere along the line, I've always wanted to play that character.

Andy Serkis

#95. I remember once, I read in a horoscope, because I'm an Aries, I read this terrible thing, which really affected me, which said, "You will never be original. You will always be an interpreter." (Laughs) I thought, "Oh my God." You know, I had to live with that on my back for [all my life].

Andy Serkis

#96. Acting is acting, as far as I'm concerned and, you know, how you manifest it is, at the end of the day, not the point. It's how it affects the story & how it affects the audience. And if people are hungry to be told stories, using, using this form then there's a reason for that.

Andy Serkis

#97. You never really know why you become an actor: it's a visceral thing, an emotional thing.

Andy Serkis

#98. There's a huge gulf between people who can afford to go to drama school and those who can't.

Andy Serkis

#99. There are parts of New Zealand that I absolutely fell in love with that I will miss going back to, but I kind of think that is the part that can continue and will continue on. I don't imagine I'll stop going back to New Zealand, because I feel part of the fabric there, really.

Andy Serkis

#100. I can get on with all different sorts of people, and I never feel homesick, particularly, or I've never felt kind of patriotic towards any one country.

Andy Serkis