Gollum Is Gollum - Though

My First Job When I Got My Equity Card Was Acting In 14 Plays Back-to-back. Playing That Many Roles, You Look For Ways Of Differentiating The Characters Physically, Which Goes Hand In Hand With Understanding Them Psychologically.

What You Can Do With Visual Effects Is Enhance The Look Of The Character, But The Actual Integrity Of The Emotional Performance And The Way The Character's Facial Expressions Work, That Is What Is Going To Be Created On The Day With Other Actors And The Director.

There's This Whole Grey Area Seemingly Every Time It's Talked About Animators And Who Takes Ultimate Responsibility For The Characters [of The Planet Of The Apes] But Without Question And I'll Go Down Saying This Year After Year, These Characters Are Authored By What We Do On Set. They Are Not Authored By Animators.

I've Done A Fair Amount Of That Stuff... When We Did 'lord Of The Rings' The Transformation Sequence From Smeagol To Gollum Was A 19-hour Make-up Job. You Have To Have A Kind Of Zen Button That You Press And Allow The Mind To Be Focused In A Certain Way.

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.