Andy Serkis has revealed that his cat coughing on a hairball was his inspiration for the voice of Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
The actor shot to fame taking on the role of the tortured Gollum in the three Lord of the Rings movies, a role he is expected to reprise for The Hobbit.
He told the Huffington Post website: "When I first learned I would play the role. The first thing to do was to read Tolkien.
"We had a cat named Diz and I watched him. Gollum is named that for the way he sounds. It's an involuntary reaction to the guilt he feels about killing his cousin.
"I thought, 'How can I find a sound that feels physicalised?' When a cat coughs, the movement from the tailbone to the tip of the spine, that choking sound was perfect for where Gollum kept his pain. The sound lent itself to the physicality."
And while the role of Gollum was completely a CGI creation Serkis was drawn to the character.
"Gollum was so interesting to me because he's morally ambivalent and I love the notion of a quest that is to lose something. Not to gain, but to get rid of something."
Filming is expected to get underway on The Hobbit sometime this year, with Guillermo Del Toro in the director's chair and Peter Jackson penning the script and acting as executive producer.
Tagged in Andy Serkis