Jackson confirmed that Serkis had the right of it. You know, we want someone to be on set, to be Gollum, but not you know, no actor could be actually how we envision him.’ Pete did say, ‘I’m not exactly sure how this is going to happen, but we’re trying out this new methodology called motion capture. Even so, as Serkis tells it, Peter Jackson himself wasn’t sure if they could pull it off. Thankfully, he ignored that advice and we got Gollum in all of his glory. In 2001, motion capture technology was largely unheard of, so it’s understandable that Serkis’ pal would try and warn him off of it. They’d like to see you for a voice for a digital character.’ I was like, ‘A what?’ I remember I was in Prague working on an adaptation of Oliver Twist actually and I said to this other actor I was working with, ‘I think I may be going down to New Zealand to do this digital character.’ He said, ‘Well, is your face going to be on screen?’ I said, ‘No, it’s not.’ He said, ‘Mate, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.’” Because when I first heard from my agent this was happening, it was just like, ‘Andy, look, they’re doing this amazing kind of film of Lord of the Rings down in New Zealand. Telling a story during the virtual Lord of the Rings cast reunion hosted by Josh Gad, Serkis described getting a fateful phone call. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine the trilogy without Serkis in it, but he nearly wasn’t.

As far as Serkis is concerned, the Academy just didn’t know what to do with an actor in a mo-cap role. In fact, none of the actors took home the gold. Sadly, Serkis was overlooked by the Academy when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was showered with awards in 2004. It wasn’t until The Two Towers the following year when this character would really get his time in the spotlight, brought to life with a combination of Serkis’ now-iconic performance and cutting edge motion-capture suit. Elijah Wood was Frodo Baggins, Sean Astin was Samwise Gamgee, Viggo Mortensen was Aragorn…it was good times.Īndy Serkis also showed up as the voice of Gollum, a pitiful creature bend and twisted by the One Ring who follows Frodo wherever he goes. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books were finally treated to the splashy big screen adaptation they deserved when Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters.

Lord of the rings: gollum voice actor