Bill Desowitz discusses animation, voice acting, motion capture and the convergence of movies and games with Andy Serkis.
After conquering Gollum and King Kong as CG performance milestones, Andy Serkis turns to animation voice work in Flushed Away, where he plays the hapless henchrat, Spike, who teams up with Bill Nighys larger and more intimidating Whitey.
Bill Desowitz: Aside from doing a little Gollum cameo on The Simpsons, Flushed Away really marks your first voice work for animation. What was it like?
Andy Serkis: I love playing characters and this is such a great character. The challenge of this, as opposed to live action, is doing it for three or four hours and not seeing anything of the character for six months. And then waiting another six months to do another session. As opposed to working for several months on a live-action set and then performing the motion capture.
BD: What did you like about Spike?
AS: I like the fact that hes pretty jumped up, hes highly stressed and thinks hes more important than he is and has big plans. He probably lives at home with his mum and she does all his ironing. We all know someone like Spike and hes pretty harmless, really.
BD: What kind of direction did you get?
AS: Well, I suppose what they really tried to bring out was this balance of his being quite endearing, actually, despite him being one of the baddies, supposedly. And also he works in counterpoint to Whitey, who Bill Nighy plays. He thinks hes more philosophical and Spike is just plan, plan, plan, and is always getting bossed around, which winds up with him getting hurt.
BD: Was there much discussion about Laurel and Hardy and other classic comedy teams?
AS: Oh, yeah. And also Abbott and Costello. There is that brokers man aspect and British pantomime. I think their energy is important.
BD: Talk about what it was like getting honored at the eDIT 9. Festival in Frankfurt.
AS: That was amazing sitting between Terry Gilliam and Ray Harryhausen. They are two huge heroes of mine and theyve defined cinema in so many ways.
This is a brief excerpt from the interview with Andy Serkis. You can view the rest of the interview at the exclusive Flushed Away site.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
