The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Andy Serkis
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Billy Boyd, ...

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

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THREE'S COMPANY To mix the digital Gollum with real-life actors, Jackson filmed each Gollum scene three times. First, scenes with the two hobbits (Elijah Wood's Frodo, and Sean Astin's Sam) were shot with Serkis standing in for the digital Gollum. Then the same scenes were shot two more times: once with only the hobbits and a final time with Serkis alone, interacting with Frodo and Sam mannequins in a studio recreation of the set.

For the third version, Serkis laced up a skin-tight suit speckled with motion capture ''dots'' -- small fixtures that recorded the movement of every joint on his body. He reenacted all of his scenes while viewing the initial Wood-Astin take on a pair of video goggles. The motion capture data from these solo shots provided Gollum's skeletal movement, which was ''painted'' over Serkis' image in the first take with the other actors. Skin, teeth, hair, and slime were added later using a digital scan from the Gollum model.

ACTING THE PART Tight spandex and motion capture dots aside, Gollum was just another acting gig for the Oscar-eligible Serkis. Consider the following: Not only was he allowed to improvise (the scene where Gollum sings a little nursery rhyme ditty while bashing the life out of a fish ? that's all Serkis), but he even tried some method acting. He'd often spend his downtime away from the other actors, climbing mountains, canoeing... being on his own to get into the mindset of a character who's been obsessing in a cave for hundreds of years. ''I welcomed that as part of the process,'' he says.

It remains to be seen if the studio will succeed at positioning Serkis for any of the big movie awards. They may have enough of a challenge just getting people to identify the actor -- who's a pompadoured Brian Setzer look-alike in real-life. Even so, Jackson insists that all it takes is a close look. ''If you've met Andy, you'll recognize Gollum,'' he says, laughing. ''He's sort of Gollum's alter ego.''

Originally posted Dec 30, 2002
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