Andy Serkis is the master of motion capture. He is Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Caesar in the Planet of Ape series, and Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
So, it feels kind of appropriate that our interview is happening virtually. He is speaking on a screen from New Zealand, where he is directing and starring in the next Lord of the Rings film, The Hunt for Gollum, which is scheduled to land in cinemas in time for Christmas next year.
“It sits absolutely between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies, and books in fact,” he explains handily, as it can be difficult to keep up with the ever-expanding Tolkienverse.
“It is very much a deep dive into the psychology and history of Gollum before he became Gollum, but also with a very burning question from Gandalf about what the potential origin of this ring that Bilbo Baggins has is,” he reveals.
“The hunt takes place in two different dimensions really and that’s about as far as I can say at the moment.”
Serkis also confirms that he will not be directing the second new Lord of the Rings film, Shadow of the Past, written by the US chat show host Stephen Colbert.
“I think that that post has been taken, put it that way,” says Serkis with a twinkle in his eye, before adding: “That’s going to be a fascinating story too. I know it’s something that Stephen’s very, very excited about being part of.”
Throughout his career, 62-year-old Serkis has been a campaigner for equality. In 2018, he said that being one of the few white actors in Black Panther gave him a new understanding of what it feels like to be the ethnic minority on a film set.
However, the previous Lord of the Rings films, made before colour-blind casting became common, had almost entirely white line-ups, and so far, his film looks like being the same.
Every major cast member announcement to date has been white; Jamie Dornan, Anna Taylor-Joy, Kate Winslet, Leo Woodall, as well as the returning stars including Elijah Wood and Sir Ian McKellan. The question is, why?
Serkis nods his head before answering and it is clear this is a subject he has given a lot of thought: “Tolkien himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology, there’s a lot of that feeling.
“The Shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know…”
He tails off and pauses before continuing, with greater certainty: “They’re not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of The Shire, but they know they don’t want people coming in.
“Yes, there have been criticisms,” he says, acknowledging arguments that are now almost a quarter of a century old.
“This particular film is somewhat acknowledging that. But we don’t think we will be doing a politically correct just-casting-for-the sake-of-casting-and-ticking-boxes version of the film. So, it’s only where relevant basically.”
Although several major stars have been cast in The Hunt For Gollum already, further casting announcements are expected in the coming months.
Serkis is speaking to BBC News ahead of the UK release of the new big-screen animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which he has directed.
It comes with an all-star voice cast; Seth Rogen as Napoleon the pig, Woody Harrelson as Boxer the Shire horse and a whole flock of other Hollywood names Kieran Culkin, Jim Parsons, Glenn Close, Kathleen Turner and Steve Buscemi.
Serkis, who also provides the voice of Randolph the rooster, says the book made a big impression on him as a child.
“I remember vividly reading it on the 273 bus to Ealing from my home in Ruislip, when I was about 11 or 12 years old,” he reminisces.
“It was one of the first young adult books that affected me emotionally and made me terribly sad for this utopia that had been created by these animals. It was all going so well and then just gradually falling apart.”
Then, 35 years later, while making Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he had the idea to make his own Animal Farm.
“I’m playing Caesar in the first film, leading the apes to freedom and rebelling and breaking out of the facility,” he recalls. “And I thought, ‘there has not been an animated, modern film version of Animal Farm’. That’s what sparked it.”
‘We knew the film would be polarising’
Serkis is careful to say “modern film version”, because the first ever full-length British animated film of any kind was 1954’s Animal Farm, the version that generations of school children have been shown in class.
Only 20 years after its release did it emerge that, unknown to the film’s co-directors John Halas and Joy Bachelor, the production had been funded by the CIA.
The rights were bought from George Orwell’s widow Sonia, by two agents working for the Office of Policy Coordination, a division of the CIA which attempt to battle communism through culture.
I ask Andy Serkis if he can be sure that his Animal Farm was not also surreptitiously funded by the CIA.
“There’s absolutely, and I can categorically say, zero chance that our film could have been funded by the CIA,” he laughs heartily.
“And if you look at the American box office, the way our film worked there, you can probably see why.”
He is referring to the fact that his Animal Farm took a tiny $5.5m (£4.4m) from an estimated budget of $35m (£26m ) when it opened in the US in May.
“We knew it was going to be polarising, and some people won’t like it,” he says defiantly.
This Animal Farm does indeed put certain aspects of the book through a proverbial combine harvester.
There is a new protagonist, Lucky the piglet, voiced by Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin in Stranger Things), the allegory is anti-modern autocracies rather than anti-communist, a whole extra third act comes complete with a happy ending, and there are fart jokes.
“Well, everybody loves a good fart joke, regardless of your age,” Serkis laughs.
“We’ve tested this film with very young kids, down to the age of about six, and it’s scored incredibly highly.”
Serkis pushes back on bad reviews
The new adaptation has not done so well with film critics, however.
The New York Times said it was “lost in the mud”, concluding: “It’s drowning in ideological confusion, which wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that this is Animal Farm.”
The film “mucks up Orwell”, according to the Wall Street Journal, who surmised: “As comedy, the movie is feeble, and as allegory for the socioeconomically literate it is heavy-handed.”
But, to keep the farmyard analogies going, Serkis is bullish.
“Part of the nature of Orwell was being someone who stirs it up, who makes people think and gets people talking.
“We have purposefully gone out of our way to make it a movie that can speak to as broad an audience as possible.”
His main complaint, and what he says does hurt, are those who wrote off his Animal Farm without seeing it.
“The problem was that, in the States, it was decided by people watching the trailer.
“We had 60 million hits or something ridiculous, most of which were polarised and arguing; each side claiming Orwell for their own individual visions, I suppose, and saying that this wasn’t right.”
Serkis is certain that George Orwell himself would not have consigned this Animal Farm to Room 101.
“We worked very closely with the Orwell estate, and I know for a fact that he would, I think, approve of this version of the story, because it connects with the audience in the way that they are having the, excuse the phrase, wool being pulled over their eyes.”
He pauses before concluding: “The rest of the world may have a completely different opinion to the US box office figure, which I’m pretty certain will be the case actually.”
And with that he has to go and return to directing the next instalment in the 10th biggest film franchise of all time.
Just another day at the farm.
Animal Farm opens in UK cinemas on Friday 17 July.
