In the last ten years Andy Serkis has been one of only a minor number of actors to truly embrace motion capture - taking on a whole host of roles that have involved this.
He is back on the big screen this week as he takes on the role of chimp Caesar in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is directed by Rupert Wyatt.
So to celebrate the release of the movie we take a look at the changing faces of this British actor.
- Gollum - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since the release of The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring - and with two words Serkis’ career changed forever.
Yes of course I’m talking about ‘My Precious’ as he took on the role of Gollum, a complete CGI creation, in the trilogy.
In The Return of the King we finally saw Serkis himself on the big screen as we saw Sméagol’s early life.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is one of the biggest franchises of all time and Return of the King swept the board at the Oscars.
- Pvt. Thomas Quinn - Deathwatch
He switched the fantasy film for a war project in 2002 when he starred in Deathwatch alongside Jamie Bell and Laurence Fox.
In 1917, in the Western front, a group of survivors of the British Company Y reach the most forward German trench in a foggy night.
They are warned of an evil that exists in the trench by a German solider but his warning is not heard. Slowly this force works it’s way through the trench and the British soldiers turn on each other.
Serkis played Pvt. Thomas Quinn in the movie and fails to hide from this evil as he is killed by barbed wire.
- King Kong - King Kong
He reunited with director Peter Jackson in 2005 when the director remade King Kong. Once again Serkis was called upon for the motion capture work of bring the big ape to life.
But Serkis didn’t just take on the title role he also played Lumpy, the cook, as he split his time between working on set with the rest of the cast and the motion capture studio.
The movie was met well by the critics when it was released and King Kong went on to take $550 million at the global box office.
- Spike - Flushed Away
From motion capture to animation Serkis joined an all star voice cast of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet and Ian McKellan in 2006 for Flushed Away.
The movie was a collaboration between DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations and Serkis voiced the character of Spike.
The story of an uptown rat that gets flushed down the toilet from his penthouse apartment, ending in the sewers of London, where he has to learn a whole new and different way of life.
- Ian Dury - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Serkis took on the biopic last year as he played Ian Dury in the Matt Whitecross directed movie Sex & drugs & Rock & Roll.
The film followed Dury, who was stricken with polio at a young age and defied expectations by becoming one of the founders of the punk-rock scene in Britain in the 1970s.
Serkis’s central performance gained him critical acclaim and he was nominated for Best Actor at the British Academy Film Awards and British Independent Film Awards, picking up the gong at the Evening Standard Film Awards.
- Caesar - The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
This week is also takes on the role of a primate in the Rise of the Planet of the Apes as he plays Caesar.
Set in present day San Francisco, the film is a reality-based cautionary tale, a science fiction/science fact blend, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.
The movie has already topped the U.S. box office - taking a healthy $54 million in its opening weekend.
And Serkis has plenty of projects in the pipeline as he has lent his voice to The Adventures of Tintin, which is directed by Steven Spielberg.
He is currently filming The Hobbit in New Zealand where he will once again take on the role of Gollum - he is also set to serve as one of the second unit director’s on the project.
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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