This month, audiences will return to Middle-earth with THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY – the first chapter of an all-new film trilogy adapting author J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary prequel to his own “The Lord Of The Rings” saga.
Andy Serkis may not be the first face one would recognize from the award-winning film series and its new prequel trilogy, but his role is nonetheless one of the franchise’s most distinctive – and one of the epic story’s most integral. The actor plays Gollum (née Smeagol), the one-time custodian of the One Ring and a deceitful influence on the events of the fantasy-cloaked land of Middle-earth. Cunning and covetous of the precious possession, he is a tragic figure corrupted by the magic of the Ring and driven mad by its power – a reluctant villain and a duplicitous guide for the story’s heroes. His is the cautionary tale, which threatens each of the Ring’s subsequent bearers, and yet it is he who leads the way to the Ring’s destruction – and the ultimate salvation of Middle-earth.
Making his first extended appearance in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002), the character ignited the cultural zeitgeist – not just for his haunting role in the beloved narrative, but because his on-screen incarnation represented such a prominent paradigm shift for the digital realization of photo-realistic phantasmagoria. Here was a character completely computer-generated (CG), and yet exhibiting the full range of emotion equal to its live-action counterparts.
