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

You can't just come up with an idea for a game and stick the drama on top. It all has to be one driving thrust.

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

Both my parents are Catholic and staunch believers. I'm not a Catholic now, but I still carry part of it with me.

I wanted to be a painter, really, when I was growing up as a kid. It was one thing that really took a grip on me.

Before I became an actor, I was a visual artist, and I've always hankered for the storytelling behind the camera.

I think acting really helps as a director. It's just no question, because you totally understand the acting process.

I think my mum wanted me to join the army or something, or become a surveyor - something with good career prospects.

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

As soon as you do it, actors realize there is no difference playing a performance-captured role or a live-action role.

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

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

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

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

Games aren't going to go away. BAFTA's got a category for games as an art form. The Academy should think about that, too.

You'll very rarely find that you can enhance a performance to give it a real emotional centre and truth... after the fact.

Britain has enormous amount of talent, as we've seen from the BAFTAs. It's all here, and it has to be allowed to flourish.

I have a road bike and a mountain bike, and I tend to use them both a lot. They help you keep your balance and your stamina.

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

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.

Acting is a sort of pressure cooker that allows the fizz to come out the top. God knows what I'd be like if I didn't have that.

When I first was offered the role on Rise [of the Planet of the Apes], I always played Caesar as a human being within ape skin.

Working with and collaborating with and for Peter Jackson was an incredible experience because he is such a phenomenal filmmaker.

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

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.

An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.

When you come out of the other end of a long process, working with a character [you realize] this character has really shaped my ideas.

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

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.

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

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.

Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away.

I had a body wax. It's the most painful thing I have ever done in my life. I had every single hair on my body pulled out, and I really bruised.

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.

I do listen to myself sometimes and think, 'Is my moral compass so easily swayed by the characters I play, or is it me growing as a human being?'

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.

I think that Gollum is really the character who is a very human character, and he's very flawed, like most humans are, and has good and bad sides.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

You don't go - oh this is a motion capture role, I'm going to employ this method of acting. We don't have anything to hide behind when we're doing this.

That's what I think is the biggest challenge, is just being still and learning how to just be present in that stillness and not over do it, not over act.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Where as you go into playing something like Ulysses [on Black Panther], you go - I'm going to have this haircut and this cloth, you draw from different stimulus.

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.

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