Katey Rich cinemablend.com writes: I was surprised to hear that Tintin, Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the Belgian comic strip, begins filming this week. This week! Hasn’t this project been in development for so long you thought it would never be made? But this week Andy Serkis is preparing to step into the role of Captain Haddock, Tintin’s hard-drinking but loyal best friend, even as his new movie, Inkheart, opens in theaters.
I spoke to Serkis last week, and while we talked a lot about his villainous role in Inkheart, he was generous enough to talk about Tintin and his return as Gollum in Lord of the Rings as well. I’ve included those parts of our conversation below, which includes his thoughts on both those top-secret projects, working with Doug Jones on The Hobbit, and the rise of motion-capture filmmaking in general. Cinemablend Interviews Andy Serkis
ComingSoon.net talked to Andy Serkis, who stars in the January 23 fantasy-adventure Inkheart, about returning to performance capture in Steven Spielberg’s Tintin, Peter Jackson’s Tintin 2, and The Hobbit. “We are starting ‘Tintin’ the week after next,” Serkis said. “Peter Jackson is producing and Steven Spielberg is directing. I remember reading them as a child. I wasn’t this massive fan. I loved the almost storyboard nature of the beautiful, beautiful drawings. And the way its going to be done… It’s obviously performance capture so it’s is going to be perfect. There isn’t a more perfect way of doing it.” As was previously reported, Spielberg will direct the first film and produce the second, while Jackson will direct the second and produce the first. About The Hobbit, Serkis said that he “met Guillermo prior to him actually being attached. It was all very much going to happen so we met at an awards and sort of giggling at the fact we were going to be working together actually. I am going to really be looking forward to it. I mean the combination between he and Peter is extraordinary as well. I know they are writing at the moment. But other than that, I really have no idea. Peter is producing. Same writing team of Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens is writing with Guillermo.” 
Daniel Fienberg sends this along: What better way to kick off this January’s Television Critics Association press tour than with Sir Ian McKellen discussing his upcoming Great Performances version of “King Lear,” which he acknowledges is generally a career-capping role for most Shakespearean actors. “If, like me, you’ve worked your way through Shakespeare as an actor, waiting up there is King Lear and beyond him a shadowy Prospero maybe or a Falstaff,” says McKellen, who admits to being terrified of Falstaff. McKellen adds, “It’s the challenge. It’s the expectation that it will complete your journey through Shakespeare.” Of course, no matter how much acclaim McKellen gets for his stage work, he knows that he’ll always be recognized in the street for something different. 
From independent.co.uk: At first, I don’t notice the figure hunched over the computer in the corner. It’s only when I hear the voice – resonant, commanding, with a trace of a Lancashire accent – that I realise that this grey-haired creature, unprepossessing, at least from behind, is Lear and Gandalf and Vanya and Magneto. Is, in other words, Sir Ian McKellen. And when he turns round, he’s not unprepossessing at all. His face is lined, but amazingly handsome. His body, in super-hip jeans, turquoise T-shirt and chic little jacket, is athletic and lithe. Mature but modern is the overall impression. Gravitas with a funky twist. 
From The Sunday Times: He has portrayed some of the most extraordinary characters on screen, from King Kong to Gollum. Now Andy Serkis is emerging from behind the disguises and gaining recognition as a fine actor. Andy Serkis with one of his film characters Gollum on his shoulder. Andy Serkis has made a living out of playing nutters, freaks and psychopaths. So it is more than a little worrying when he tells me that “It’s really hard to come out of character.” He is the Boris Karloff of the 21st century, the actor the top casting directors call for when they want a monster to scare the audience witless. He played the titular 25ft-tall gorilla in the 2005 remake of King Kong, and the loathsome Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the television play Longford, last year, he became the Moors murderer Ian Brady. And we have just seen him in BBC1’s Little Dorrit as the murderous Rigaud, a character he himself has called “a thoroughly nasty piece of work”. Even when Serkis played Einstein — in the BBC film Einstein and Eddington — he brought out the darkness in the Nobel laureate. “It was a dream role,” he says, eyes blazing, hands clasped. “Apart from the great things we know about him, Einstein could be pretty ruthless, manipulative and dark. Ninety per cent of his time and energy was focused on work, and this was one of the biggest regrets of his life He just felt really guilty for screwing up his children, who were part of the sacrifice.”