By Pat French
This past week’s announcement of the cast for Star Wars Episode VII has dominated the blogosphere. Bloggers are stumbling over themselves to predict and theorize what kind of role each of the relatively new actors and actress (yep. Still just one. Star Wars is a boys club) will be portraying. Aside from the casting of John Boyega, from 2011’s excellent Attack the Block, I could really care less about these youngsters. I was far more interested in the casting of the two older gents: the legendary Max Von Sydow and the crown prince of Mo-Cap, Andy Serkis.
Andy Serkis is the Motion Capture Artist behind Gollum (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy), King Kong (from the 2005 film), Captain Haddock (The Adventures of Tintin), and Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). I’m normally not a big fan of using CGI over practical effects, but one cannot deny the levels of pathos and characterization Serkis brings to his roles. Gollum/Smeagol alone is such a fully-realized special effect that he steals the show (at least in The Two Towers). Caesar is similarly incredible. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a movie I thought was going to be complete crap, but Serkis’ portrayal of the ape Caesar stole my heart and had me cheering for the apes to destroy humanity (probably not my proudest moment…).
Serkis is no slouch in terms of live-action acting either. He’s a classically trained English stage actor, having earned his equity card performing in shows like King Lear and The Winter’s Tale. He’s appeared alongside David Tennant on stage as well as in the HBO/BBC television film Einstein and Eddington (2008) as Albert Einstein. He played the pre-Gollum version of Smeagol in Return of the King and the ship’s cook in King Kong . He’s also quite good in the depressingly wonderful film Death of a Superhero (2011).
So what side of Serkis do we get to see in Star Wars VII? I have no clue, and honestly, I doubt anyone will until we get a trailer some time next year (JJ Abrams is kind of a dick like that). Smart money would be that he mo-caps an alien, but Serkis has the chops (and, hell I’ll say it, the looks) of a Jedi, so I’m withholding my official prediction for a little while. It’s just as likely he could do both.
Star Wars is far from the only project Serkis has on his plate right now. Peter Jackson has announced 2 Tintin sequels, with Serkis officially returning for at least the first one. He’ll reprise his role as Caesar in this summer’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. He’s also making his directorial Debut with a Jungle Book movie for Warner Bros (which I’m sure will involve some sort of Motion Capture). And just today (May the 2nd) it was announced that he’ll be assisting Mark Ruffalo in portraying the Hulk in next summer’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. Also, one has to figure there’s a good chance he’ll be in two more installments of Star Wars.
Andy Serkis is like a cross between Bruce Lee, Boris Karloff and Ray Harryhausen. He’s a living special effect. If an actor got the powers of all the roles he played, Andy Serkis would be nigh unstoppable (Seriously, a Hulked-out King Kong? Yikes!).