Andy Serkis

Andy Serkis was born in Ruislip, London, England, on April 20, 1964. His exotic last name is due to his father, a doctor of Armenian origin whose profession forced the family –five children, three girls and two boys– to move around Middle East. So Andy’s childhood was spent between London and Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. He attended London Benedictine Abbey School, and from a young age showed an artistic inclination, so he would go on to study visual arts at Lancaster University. At that time he worked in set design for plays, which also led to his acting debut in Barrie Keefe ‘s “Gotcha” . There he became convinced that he was more interested in acting than being an artistic designer.

However, Serkis did not learn to act in a school, but began as an apprentice at Duke’s PlayHouse in Lancaster, acting in the performance of 14 plays. He would later join traveling companies, and act without pay, the question was to learn, to improve his work day by day in the real world. Little by little he would make a name for himself on stage. This would allow him to also work on the small screen, making his debut in 1989 in series like The New Statesman and Streetwise . He would follow Neighborhood Police , until in 1994 he launched into the cinema with The True Story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , where he was the best of British interpretation, from Helen Mirren toChristian Bale , going through Brian Cox and Tom Wilkinson .

With Mike Leigh he has made Two Girls Today (1997) and Topsy-Turvy (1999). She has worked with Michael Caine in the boxing film Shiner (2000). And he composed the classic character of Bill Sikes in one of the many miniseries about Oliver Twist (1999) . Michael Winterbottom claimed him for 24 Hour Party People (2002).

But there is a before and after in the life of Serkis since he pronounced that “My treasure, my treasure” in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring . His adventure in the Tolkien trilogy forced him to spend two years in New Zealand. Around this time he married actress Lorraine Ashbourne , with whom he has three children. He amazingly composed his Gollum character in the adaptation of Tolkien’s work, so he reprized in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003). Of course Weta’s visual effects were important, but the motion capture technique of CGI creating her character required good acting and he delivered without hesitation. Peter Jackson was so delighted with his work that he would have him again for King Kong (2005), where in addition to a human character, he composed the gigantic gorilla. Jackson’s intervention would also be decisive for Steven Spielberg to give him the role of Captain Haddock in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011). And he reprized the role of a primate in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), where he plays the intelligent chimpanzee Caesar.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, Serkis has continued to “show his face” in films such as The Dream of My Life (2004), Operation Strombraker (2006), The Final Trick (2006) and Inkheart (2008), but in clearly minor roles. . He has recently done in this line Brighton Rock (2010), adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene. But clearly the actor is committed to his dedication to characters created with motion capture techniques, and in fact he is going to return to Gollum in the two films based on “The Hobbit” prepared by Peter Jackson, and he has created a company in London, Imaginarium , dedicated to the subject. And it is that, remembers Serkis, his “are not animated characters; you could not achieve the level of emotional connection in this area if it were keyframe animation. Drama is what happens between two actors; not what a person emits. And You can’t fake that.” The Spider , a horror film that Robert Sigl is preparing , and where he will have a prominent role, also promises a lot .