Andy Serkis in New York City Report
Xoanon @ 7:59 pm EST

Andy Serkis in NYC

Heather writes: I'm submitting some photos and a write-up from the Andy Serkis signing in Times Square (the one at Toys R' Us that was held on 12/18). Please post when you have the chance. Thank you very much.

On December 18th 2003, I had the wonderful privilege of meeting Andy Serkis when he was in NYC promoting for 'Return Of The King (he was doing a signing at Toys R' Us in Times Square).' I was very excited when I got my ticket- number 14! :) There were 750 tickets given out, and judging from the large amount of people that showed up, I’d say most of that number was gone (in order to receive your ticket, you had to purchase the LOTR editions of either Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, or Risk, then you had to go to the 3rd floor and hand your receipt to the personal shopping services and they'd assign you a ticket with a # on it. and just like at Trilogy Tuesday, you were specifically told NOT to lose your ticket. haha).

Although I was exhausted from Trilogy Tuesday the day before (I had seen it in West Nyack, NY), I had no trouble getting out of bed. I was too excited! I got to the Toys R' Us around 12:45 pm and the line was long, but not ridiculous. It was after I had arrived that it began to pile up. The Toys R' Us staff brought 10-20 people at a time up to the 3rd floor where Andy would be meeting and greeting the fans. Once upstairs, the staff asked people for their names, which were handed to them on a Post-It note to be given to Mr. Serkis when it was their turn to meet him. Afterwards, they would receive a complimentary poster from New Line Cinema, which Andy would personally sign (it was the Gollum teaser poster). While waiting on-line, we were all treated to the ROTK trailer repeating itself on the big screen, as well as opportunities to enter a raffle for Wormtongue's dagger.

When it was my turn, I exchanged greetings with Andy, and the first thing he noticed was my T-Shirt, which had the logo for the band Joy Division on it. He exclaimed wildly: 'oh my god, Joy Division! That is absolutely fantastic!' he mentioned briefly how he grew up listening to them and how he's still a big fan of theirs. I then told that I really enjoyed his performance in '24 Hour Party People’ (about the Manchester punk/rave scene of the 80's. it featured dramatizations of bands like New Order, Joy Division, Happy Mondays, etc.). I told him just how perfect his portrayal of Martin Hannett (Joy Division's producer) was, and he was glowing! :) He asked me if I had seen ROTK yet, and I told him it was absolutely phenomenal. I even let him know that I cried through most of it, and he thought it was very sweet. awwww. I showed him my Gollum-shaped ring and he had never seen it before, so he asked one of the photographers to take some pictures of him holding my hand and looking at the ring. For a minute, I thought he was going to pull a Gollum on me and try to steal it because he liked it so much! haha. He signed my poster (it reads 'Hi Heather, my precioussss'- Andy Serkis), and after we took a picture together, he gave me a HUGE hug and said 'thank you so much for wearing the Joy Division T-Shirt. It really means a lot to me.' awwww. How 'precious.' :)

Meeting Andy Serkis was one of the most pleasant experiences I ever had. He is an extremely down-to-earth individual who is willing to take as much time as he can to talk to his fans. True, he's done extensive acting work (especially in recent years), but he is still very much a regular guy who still enjoys kicking back to the music of his youth. Thank you Andy! :)