Posted on 07/13/2014 6:52:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
He's been Gollum and King Kong, and plays Caesar in this month's ''Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.'' Over the past decade, Andy Serkis has quietly become Hollywood's most bankable invisible actor. Next, he'll transform again, for ''Star Wars: Episode VII.''
It's the eyes. In the flesh, Andy Serkis doesn't especially resemble his character from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (rated PG-13, out July 11). Walking fully upright and dressed in a black shirt and jeans with holes in both front pockets, he's looking pretty Homo sapiens—not at all like Caesar, the chimpanzee star of the rebooted Apes franchise.
Except, that is, for his eyes. Liquid and slightly red-rimmed, they wield considerable emotional depth, and if you look at them long enough you can catch fleeting but unmistakable glimpses of the simian revolutionary and peacetime leader he portrays in Dawn. When popped open in surprise or scrunched in thought, they occasionally transform into the bugged-out peepers of Gollum, that pitiful, covetous homunculus from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, which helped put Serkis on the map.
The performance, capped by his sibilant entreaties for his ''precioussssss,'' became instantly iconic. But despite this ubiquity, and the fact that the 50-year-old actor is the lead in another major tentpole series—2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes grossed $482 million worldwide—most moviegoers would be hard-pressed to recognize Serkis if they met him.
Advances in CGI have led to a doubling down on spectacle, primarily in the form of spaceships, superheroes, and urban destruction. Early on, these technical leaps inspired a lot of hand-wringing in Hollywood that F/X would phase out serious acting. But Serkis and an army of postproduction animators have allayed much of that anxiety.
(Excerpt) Read more at ew.com ...
Interesting. Too bad the article didn’t have pictures of him. Hurray for Google!
When I first saw the words, shape shifter, I figured the article would be about a Rino.
He's very intelligent, as well. They interviewed him and asked if he knew all the names of the dwarves in the Hobbitt . He rattled them off in 10 seconds. The other actors (even the dwarves) had no idea.
If you like horror-comedy, check him out in ‘The Cottage.’
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