The eagerly-awaited big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit has a new director.

Lord Of The Rings helmer Peter Jackson remains the main man, of course, but now it transpires that Gollum, too, is trying his hand behind the camera.

“Peter asked me if I’d be the second-unit director on The Hobbit, so I am heading back to New Zealand to do that,” begins English actor Andy Serkis, who first made his mark with his startling performance as Gollum in Jackson’s original Tolkien trilogy. “A project of The Hobbit’s scale means I am shooting large sections of the movie, everything from big stunt sequences to drama to vista shots, everything you would do on a main unit. Peter has put a lot of trust in me.”

And well he might -- Serkis has proved a key player in Jackson’s more recent career, his skill as a motion-capture artist taking him from The Lord Of The Rings to King Kong, and now into Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s big-screen adaptation of Tin Tin, where he plays Captain Haddock, before Jackson’s two-film version of The Hobbit, where the 47-year-old reprises his iconic role as Bilbo’s bane.

“I had no idea what I was entering into when I first accepted the role of Gollum all those years ago,” continues Serkis. “It’s led me on this extraordinary trajectory. Before I became an actor, I studied visual arts and wanted to be a painter and designer, so in many ways this is like coming full circle. All the disciplines I’ve learned playing Gollum, and working with Peter and his team at [digital effects house] WETA in New Zealand, bring me back to where I started. Acting is a part of what I want to do, and now I want to do more directing.”

This is a big year for Serkis. Along with his move into directing on The Hobbit, he’s also tackling roles in two blockbusters -- The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and The Adventures Of Tin Tin: The Secret Of The Unicorn -- as well as concentrating on a business venture, The Imaginarium, a motion-capture studio, which will produce its own films.

“In some ways, punters know more about motion-capture, and get it more, than many of those on the inside,” he says. “Within the industry it’s perceived as a niche tool for big-budget movies and is out of the auspices of smaller or independent films, which won’t be true in the future. With The Imaginarium the idea is to make motion-capture a tool for lower-budget films. The costs aren’t that expensive -- I know that from doing video games. The costs are in the rendering and what you do with it afterwards. But those costs will come down.”

For those “punters” who are not as savvy as Serkis suggests, motion-capture is a method of recording the actor’s performance digitally, so it can then be transferred via computer to another body, be it Gollum, Kong or an animated Captain Haddock. Although it requires the use of special cameras and the actor wearing a suit rigged with numerous LEDs, Serkis insists that a motion-capture performance is no different from any other form of acting.

Indeed, the actor is almost evangelical about his craft and certainly he is the leading exponent in the field. Kathy Kennedy, Spielberg’s long-term producing partner and a producer on the new Tin Tin franchise, calls him “the world’s foremost motion-capture artist”, and this becomes glaringly apparent in the first of his blockbusters to hit cinemas this year, The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, a prequel to the existing franchise mythos and the first of the films to dispense with men in rubber suits.

The film opens in a little under two weeks and sees Serkis team up with WETA once more, playing yet another simian -- in the form of lead chimpanzee Caesar -- although this time out he plays the character from infant through maturity.

“Playing the young Caesar was more physically exhausting than anything else, because there’s an energy, and he was much more quadrapedal at that stage,” says Serkis. “But as he matures in the movie and becomes bipedal it becomes easier. Every time I did a scene I was constantly monitoring how I’d be playing a gifted child -- an 11-year-old in a four- or five-year-old’s body -- and that was the most joyous part of it, to be honest.”

The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes begins with a scientist (James Franco) searching for an Alzheimer’s cure, although when his simian test subjects begin displaying aggressive behaviour, his programme is shut down. He then finds himself charged with an overlooked newborn infant chimpanzee -- Caesar, the newly-orphaned offspring of his most promising test subject.

“So Caesar is brought home and raised as a human child by James Franco’s character,” explains Serkis. “He is almost like an exceptionally gifted child and he thinks he is human -- a human in an ape’s skin — and believes that he is part of this nuclear family. Then at a certain point he reaches an age of maturity and self-recognition, and then his world falls apart. He’s put into a sanctuary with other apes but he doesn’t realise what he is. He is like a Frankenstein’s Monster.”

Serkis compares the movie’s second act to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. “Caesar’s sent to this madhouse and he has choices -- he either rejects humanity completely or tries to hold on to a certain aspect of it, which he believes is good. From there he gets to lead a revolution. So I get to play this chimp from infancy through to a revolutionary leader.”

To build his performance, Serkis turned to research he’d done on King Kong, specifically to footage of a chimpanzee called Oliver who became something of a celebrity in the 1970s, earning the moniker “the human-zee”.

“He was brought up with his carers in a household and he walked bipedally, unlike any other chimpanzee,” Serkis says. “He was at one time believed to be the progeny of a human and an ape, and was subjected to a lot of experimentation around the world and became a bit of a celebrity. He was dumped in a sanctuary as well, so there are many parallels with Caesar.” Thankfully, Oliver didn’t lead an ape revolution, but had very human facial expressions. “And he’d sit in a chair and drink and eat, and when he reached sexual maturity he foisted himself on his carer! But he existed as a human being, and that research was so helpful for this role.”

 

After The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, Serkis returns to cinemas in October with The Adventure Of Tin Tin: The Secret Of The Unicorn, another motion-capture performance, although this one is rendered in 3D animation. “It doesn’t bother me that I’m known primarily for motion capture,” he concedes. “It is isn’t what I set out to do -- it came out of left field -- but I am thankful for the opportunities it’s afforded me. I love dressing up and being completely bold in playing someone else. Characters are what make this fun, and to take it to the point where you’re totally unrecognisable is part of the thrill of it.”

Born in Ruislip Manor, West London, Serkis has enjoyed a rich and varied life -- his screen career began in 1994 -- and despite his standing in the filmmaking community can still lead a normal life in his home city. The anonymity, he says, is another advantage afforded by his work as a motion-capture artist.

He is not done with traditional acting, however, and after Tin Tin has sailed off screens audiences will see his (actual) face in the likes of Wild Bill, the debut feature from actor Dexter Fletcher, and The Death Of A Superhero, “a very bizarre title for a very small film about a young boy who is dying of cancer”. Serkis plays his therapist.

“I love all forms of acting, though I haven’t been on stage for a little while,” he concludes. “The last play I did was Othello a while back, but I am going to be doing a play next year, I hope. So I am still doing conventional stage roles and live action films, like the Ian Dury film I did [Sex And Drugs And Rock’n’Roll], as well as taking my first steps into directing.”

Second-unit director on The Hobbit is not a bad place to start. “I know,” he beams. “I’m a lucky boy.” 

The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes opens in cinemas on August 11.