Interview: Andy Serkis, Flushed Away

Movies Online recently caught up with the very talented and amazingly versatile Andy Serkis at the Los Angeles Press Day for the new computer-animated comedy, "Flushed Away” from Dream Works Animation and Aardman Features, the teams behind the Oscar-wining hits "Shrek” and ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” Directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, "Flushed Away” blends Aardman’s trademark style and characterizations with DreamWorks’ state-of-the-art computer animation to create a unique new look for the art form. In the film, Serkis voices the character of Spike, a hapless henchrat in the employ of a nefarious toad.

The story is set on and beneath the streets of London. Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is a pampered pet mouse who thinks he’s got it made. But when a sewer rat named Sid (Shane Richie) decides it’s his turn to enjoy the lap of luxury, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the loo for a dip in the ‘whirlpool.’ Roddy’s plan backfires when he inadvertently winds up being the one flushed away into the bustling world down below. Underground, Roddy discovers a vast metropolis, where he meets Rita (Kate Winslet), a street-wise rat who is on a mission of her own. Roddy and Rita must escape the clutches of the villainous Toad (Ian McKellen), who has dispatched his henchrats, Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy), and his cousin, the mercenary Le Frog (Jean Reno) to put Roddy and Rita on ice.

Serkis is well known for his memorable and critically acclaimed performances as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s "Lord of the Rings” trilogy and as Kong in Jackson’s epic "King Kong.” Through his roles in both films, he has advanced the art of ‘performance capture’ where an actor’s movements and expressions are electronically tracked and translated into computer generated imagery (CGI) to bring a film character to life. While his performance as Gollum is ranked #10 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time, Serkis was ruled ineligible for a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 2003 Academy Awards because the character was computer generated. He based the voice of Gollum on the sounds his cat made while coughing up furballs.

In addition to "Flushed Away,” Serkis can currently be seen in Christopher Nolan’s magic action thriller "The Prestige,” the HBO film "Longford,” and the Weinstein Company’s young adult adventure film "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker.” His upcoming films include "Rendition” and "Sugarhouse Lane,” both currently in post production, and "Inkheart,” now in pre-production. Serkis is also involved in developing several feature film projects including "Addict” and the recently announced "Freezing Time,” both of which he will direct. He has also done extensive television work including an impressive performance as Bill Sykes in a recent adaptation of "Oliver Twist,” lead roles in "The Jump” and the series "Finney,” and his voice can be heard on the Fox television show "The Simpsons.”  He’s also played an impressive range of roles in theatre both in London and across the United Kingdom.

Andy Serkis is a sensational actor and a fabulous person and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us:

Q: Was there any point in the sessions where you weren’t tempted to say, ‘You dirty rat?’

AS: (laughs) Ah, damn, I missed a trick!

Q: You’ve had the experience that you’ve told us at various interview sessions about how you find the voice for a character. How much of Spike did you know? Did they show you a rendering?

AS: Yeah. Obviously this is actually the first time I’ve ever done a voice for an animation. People seemed to think when I was doing Gollum that I’d done a lot of voice work and so on but no actually this is the very, very first time. But they did show us in the first sessions clay marquettes of the characters and that can be a really, really useful way of coming to grips with what he was like apart from the concept art as well they showed. And what was apparent really kind of from the off was he was kind of nasally and had very, very sharp protruding teeth, you know, sort of quite tense in the jaws so that sort of coupled with the script and obviously the fact that he’s kind of a neurotic rat who wants to be bigger than he really is sort of took me off in a particular direction.

Q: Did you study rats at all?

AS: There wasn’t really the time because, I’ll tell you what, I was actually in the middle of "King Kong” so I was studying gorillas (laughter) and this was the challenge of the job really and something I never really thought about before is that what you do in animation is you literally do maybe three or four hours on your first day then you don’t see the character again for six months, seven months while the animators go off and start working on it. Then you come back and do another session for three hours and then again so it was a very new way of working for me. I mean luckily on the very first session I got the chance to work with Bill Nighy so we worked out our characters and our voices in counterpoint sort of… I mean obviously Whitey is big and he’s also going to be slower kind of character so we were able to pitch, I suppose, our characters against each other. This was at our first session.

Q: We so often hear in animation that you’re by yourself.

Q: Is it more difficult when you’re by yourself and not having someone to play off?

AS: Well actually I’m kind of quite used to that because I spent on "Lord of the Rings” doing all the motion capture on my own and the same thing with "Kong.” I spent a lot of time on my own. In fact, I find it quite hard working with other actors these days (laughter).

Q: So you and Bill Nighy had this nice George and Lenny sort of relationship going on. How much of that came straight from the script and how much came from you two getting together that first time working it out?

AS: A bit of both really, you know. It was quite exciting seeing what Bill was coming up with and then… You just felt instinctively how it was going to sit really and then he was coming up with stuff and I was coming up with a few bits and pieces. But having said that, I think I’m right in saying that Spike and Whitey were originally conceived in a particular way and remained pretty true over the length of period. That’s certainly what Sam and Dave would say.

Q: So there wasn’t so much an evolution of the character in the same way that some characters go through so many different permutations?

AS: No, I think they were pretty clear about who those two guys were and what they wanted. I mean they are classic British pantomime brokers men and that’s how they were.

Q: That’s something particularly refreshing about this when we’ve just had David and Sam in here. One of the points that David made was that the Aardman sensibility kind of fits in that British humor pantheon that includes Ealing (Studios), Goon Show and Monty Python.

AS: Yeah, yeah, totally.

Q: So is it something when you see these classic characters?  First of all, do you worry that they might be too British, but also is it something, you know, kind of a pleasure to get into that?

AS: Well I don’t think anybody would really say …  They wouldn’t get the link. They wouldn’t say, "Oh that’s a classic British comedy pantheon or double X or whatever.’ But if you’re on the inside of the industry, you know what they represent, what genre of character they represent, I suppose. As characters, as characterizations, they’re always different. I mean it’s just how they relate to each other that’s a stock kind of thing. You know, I’ve never played a rat before so that was a challenge. (laughter)

Q: It’s also because it’s a family film and you have kids, does it make you a hero at home or do they even realize when you’re working that it’s actually you doing it?

AS: Well, it’s certainly on my other work. Not so much this because they go off and do a bit of recording. They’ve seen the trailers now so they know that I played Spike or voiced Spike. But certainly with King Kong and Gollum, they used to come in, when they were down in New Zealand and when they were at school there, they would come and watch me do motion capture. They could correlate. They could see Kong on the screen and me doing it up there on the stage and they’d go, ‘Oh, he does that movement and that gorilla does that.’ So they do get it.

Q: That’s an interesting aspect too I think of doing voice acting in an animation. Is you are turning over so much of your performance to your collaborators.

AS: For sure. Absolutely.

Q: There’s a certain frustration, I suppose, but also is there a different kind of satisfaction when you realize that this whole group made this character?

AS: Oh yeah. It’s so different from the other kind of CG work that I’ve done and of course, it’s animated. You’re not there. You’re not acting the role in the same way. But I suppose I found it, as I say, it was just different. The only thing I can liken it to is I remember doing a puppet show once years back. It was an opera and I did some voices for a puppet show at the Barbecon in London. I remember it was a technical rehearsal and I remember that one of my puppeteers was late on the stage and I was sweating because I was thinking, ‘C’mon. Where is he?’ I began to sense not being in control. It was like being late on (stage) in a play. It was really hard.

Q: Your characters have kind of revived the argument that roles like this should be Oscar worthy. There was that whole thing with Robin Williams during "Aladdin” that he should get a Supporting Actor. You won a Supporting Actor Award in the past too. What do you think of that? Do you think that animation and CG voices should be eligible in the same kind of category?

Q: I think this has got to be an interesting time for you though because after ten to twelve years of acting in front of the camera and then you achieve this great success for roles for which we never saw your face and now you’re coming back in front of the camera again and I think we have the Andy Serkis film festival coming up (laughter). Don’t you have about five or six films opening up?

AS: Yeah, there’s a few things coming out.

Q: Is it sort of starting fresh in a way because so many people may not remember you from "Topsy Turvy” but they certainly remember Gollum and so you’re really starting as a blank slate.

AS: It is true actually. That’s a really good point and it does feel a bit like that because all people kind of go, ‘Oh, look at the back catalogue now. Oh there are the "24 Hour Party People” filming it a few years ago.’ So yes it is kind of like having a fresh ….those roles have allowed me to have…curiously they’ve given me a great profile but have allowed me to still have anonymity and like you say kind of a fresh start. I’m not linked so much into the roles that people can’t see me playing anything else. People do refer to Gollum a lot.

Q: So if you’re interested in twisted gnome roles, you’d get (inaudible). (laughter) If we can return to Spike for a moment. Now with a character like Spike who is such a grand clown in the process of the film, how do you as the actor manage to balance out the great amount of comedy and the high spirits with the element of truth?

AS: Well, that’s a good question. Well, I always use sort of touch stone characters -- real people as a sort of basis for all the characters I play -- and that really comes from working with directors like Mike Lee who as part of the process you are always rooting the character in a particular person that you can… He does. He calls it a touch stone kind of character. So, yeah, you’re always bringing an element of real humanity and something truthful and for him it’s like… we all know someone like Spike. You know, I know a few people like Spike who just are desperate to prove themselves to be bigger than they are and fall over themselves all the time, and in Spike’s case, hurts himself more often than he hurts anybody else. His own violence kind of backfires on himself.

Q: So did you drawn upon your natural reserves of frustration? (laughter)

Q: Speaking of control, you’re adding a hyphenate now. You’re becoming actor-director Andy Serkis. What kind of leap is that for you or was that a natural progression?

AS: I suppose before I became an actor, I studied visual art and then when I started getting into theater, I started designing sets and I was lucky enough to go to a college where they had a great experimental theater so I’ve always, appropriately for certain stories, wanted to take a more objective view of the story rather than just seeing it through one character’s perspective. So I started making short films and directed a play and now it’s sort of…I suppose working on "Lord of the Rings” and "King Kong” where there is an element of motion capture where you have a third eye on your own performance and you’re kind of choreographing yourself into a scene. And then learning kind of the technological side of that has made me realize and then I started… I’ve been writing a while so yes, it’s been pushing towards me to do this for some time. Yeah.

Q: Have you started on the film?  Is it "Freezing Time?”

AS: "Freezing Time.” There are two projects which we are still developing. They’re going slower than I thought originally. But one of them is called "Freezing Time” which is about Edward Muybridge, the photographer who basically invented stop motion photography and really is kind of the forefather of cinema as we know it actually. He’s an amazing character. Again, obsessive, sort of an obsessive character, a workaholic. He’s got a very twisted and sort of interesting kind of life story. And then there’s this other film "Addict” which is based on an autobiography by a man called Steven Smith and that’s about this child who basically takes a wrong turn in life and through committing a minor crime is sentenced to a mental institution by his father who is embarrassed about having him committed to a prison, you know, a young offenders prison. He basically has him committed to a mental institution for medical reports and during the process of that happening, he ends up being put on dexedrine by one of the doctors and then sexually abused and then it sends him on this whole kind of downward spiral. It’s an amazing story really. It takes place over twenty years in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And so that’s something I’ve been developing the script for the last year and a half with the writer.

Q: Are you going to act in these as well?

AS: No. Just direct.

Q: I’m seeing "The Prestige” tonight.

AS:  Oh, you are!

Q: I don’t have a sense of what your role is in that.

AS: It’s a cameo role but it’s such a brilliant script and a great story. I mean I think you’ll enjoy the movie definitely.

Q: You did Mr. Grin in "Stormbreaker.” Did you and Bill (Nighy) work together on this first?

AS: Yeah, that’s another one that Bill…Of course, Bill was in that too. Yeah, that was just good fun. Yeah, we had started working on this, to answer your question.

Q: But was it good fun because it amazed me to see what’s basically a kid’s movie but one after another of these terrific actors stepping up to do the small but important roles like Mr. Grin.  There must be something there that really was fun to be part of.

Q: You’ve also got "Heavenly Sword” coming out. The video game.

AS: That’s right.

Q: And you were mentioning video games earlier, as possibly in the future to be recognized as significant art, so tell us a little bit about your involvement in that?

AS: Well that’s taken up quite a lot of this year. That’s been kind of the backbone of my year creatively. I got involved with it with a company called Ninja Theory who are producing this game called Heavenly Sword and they approached me and they said, ‘Look, there’s a real gap in video game between concept art and the look of it and the technology and actually performance. And there’s a real appetite out there for games now with performance and I really didn’t know much about video games before and so I came at it from purely a dramatic perspective so I got involved in the story design and the character development and then casting and finally I put them in touch with Wetter and we went back to New Zealand and then rehearsed it and then we shot all the motion capture. So I was directing all the performances for that game and helped with the script development throughout that process.

Q: Have you since become a gamer?

AS: I wouldn’t say I’m any good at games at all actually. I’m really not. But I’m beginning to understand the enjoyment and the excitement of becoming engaged with games. But I just think we’re at the beginning of it. I think it’s so … I don’t know how storytelling is going to be received. I mean I think it’s worthwhile investing a lot of time and I’m prepared to and want to invest a lot of time into games because my kids are getting to the point where they’re going to start playing them and there’s so many bad games out there and really atrocious. I mean there’s some great ones but actually I’d like to see some with great storytelling and great characters that you really care about or you care about the actions of the characters and whether it’s achievable or not yet, I don’t know. But certainly using facial motion capture and performance motion capture in Playstation 3 is going to be awesome really. It’s going to really enable performance to be caught. I mean I’ve just seen some of the animation coming back now and how it’s translating performance and it just looks great. You can get in with the scenes, you can chose your own camera angles, and you can really move 3D around the whole…

Q: In hearing you describe that, I wonder how important it is to the acting craft now.  It used to be [to be] considered an actor you had character and dialogue and space and that’s all you had to worry about, but the technology has now become an important element in so many jobs. Do you think people coming up through acting should learn that? Should they study motion capture or that kind of physical movement?

AS: Absolutely. As I say, I think kids will come out of drama schools and games will be part of the repertoire. In a sense, it’s like black box theater anyway. Motion capture is like that. It’s like trying on your costume for the first time as an actor. You know, maybe it doesn’t quite fit or you know you have to get used to it and then you make it your own. But with motion capture, it’s the same thing. You’ve got a hundred dots all over your face so the first day you’re aware of a hundred dots all over your face and the next day you forget about it and you just get on with it. It’s a very pure form of acting. So actually the technology doesn’t… and it will get to a point where you won’t even have to have that. It will be done optically. It’s just about what your take on the character is and how you physicalize the character.

Q: Disney just re-released "The Little Mermaid.” I think on DVD it sold 4 million copies in the first week just showing that these animated movies are going to be around and twenty years from now they’ll release it again and it will sell another 4 million. So is that part of the lure of doing these animated films, you know, that people are going to be watching these fifty years from now?

AS: I never really think about that and that’s certainly not anything… I don’t really consider that when I took this job, for instance. It’s not really part of…you know, you choose it for so many other reasons -- the script or the character or the world of the film or the company like Aardman. But I don’t really…you can’t really think like that when you set out to make a project.

Q: But does it reflect any of that six generations down your descendants might be showing it to their next generation of descendants and saying, ‘Here’s what your great, great, great grandfather did?

AS: I supposed I became aware that that might be… I suppose with "Lord of the Rings.” Obviously, it became such a sort of big … it kind of went into the public consciousness so massively and people have said, ‘You know you’re never going to be able to do anything again that’s going to top that. And you will only be remembered for that.’ Well, if that’s the case, then it’s not a bad legacy really. It would be a nice thing to be remembered for.

Q: Is there a character that you haven’t played that you would like to play. You know, something in the future that you’ve always thought about doing. A role?

Q: You used the expression just a moment ago of the world of the film. Something I’m fond of saying (is), ‘You never know what the world that you’re releasing a film into is going to be like.’ And I wonder when you were doing the James Threapleton film whether the reality of that kind of came through where you’d spend a day on the set as the interrogator and then get home and turn on the news and realize that you were playing out something.

AS: I think there are two roles recently that I played. One is that, playing this film "Rendition” and there is a serious amount of responsibility about what we’re doing in that film and also in "Longford” which is about the Moors Murders, about Myra Hindley and Ian Brady and Lord Longford’s campaigning for Myra Hindley’s release. There’s a serious amount of responsibility to cause change, to cause political change, because "Rendition” is a system that happens, is happening as we speak, and is not known about. And so it was very much a part of accepting that role, accepting to be part of that project, is taking on at the start of the film, you’re holding up that banner. And that sometimes, like you say, you realize that certain times in your life you’re taking on a role that’s going to hopefully make big changes or cause change in some way.

Q: That’s a powerful responsibility.

AS: It is and you can only set out to … It’s an improvised film as well. It was entirely improvised. We worked on… We found out… We did a lot of research into enhanced information gathering otherwise known as torture and where this takes place and actual techniques which are written down. It’s all about language. It’s all about language. How these torture techniques are worded so that they don’t sound like they are. It’s quite phenomenal. So yeah, I think you’re right. But I always felt that "Two Towers” opened at a time when it resonated hugely with what was going on in the world and had a political significance even though it was a fantasy film. So it’s funny, huh?

Q: Who knows what’s going to be happening two years from now.

AS: That’s right.

Q: Or if "Addict” for instance.

AS: Exactly, yeah.

Q: As somebody who’s done a great deal of different kinds of characters with different kinds of voices, have you ever had arguments with you in your head with these various voices just interacting?

AS: I’d like to say I have but I haven’t. (laughter) As I said, it was quite odd when we were doing King Kong and then we were doing a bit of Spike as well because I was going from a 25 foot gorilla to a 6 inch rat (laughter).  You know, that was a big call. But no, I can’t think I’ve had a sort of back and forth between Spike and Smeagol. (laughter) It could be fun.

Q: Do you enjoy it when for instance, Robin Williams has sometimes done some riffs where he does the Bush White House as Smeagol arguing with himself. Do you enjoy that?

AS: I’ll tell you what I did which I loved doing was I recorded some songs – Gollum Sings Songs from the Shows. It was a gift for a number of people when we finished "Lord of the Rings” so I did a recording of Gollum singing "You’re the One that I Want” from Grease (laughter) and "Bohemian Rhapsody” and "My Way” which is on it. (laughs)

Q: Was it ever released?

AS: No, no, it was a private gift.

Q: That would be quite a collector’s item. The "Lord of the Rings” fans would buy it en masse. (laughter) Do you have a favorite magic trick from "The Prestige” that you got to see?

AS: I didn’t really get to see any of the magic unfortunately because I was in the Science Department. So I never got to witness any of that which is a shame. You know, I love magic. I love the Magic Castle here (referring to private magician’s club in Los Angeles). It’s great.

Q: Thank you.

AS: Nice to see you.

Q: Always a pleasure.

"Flushed Away” opens in theaters on November 3rd.  I invite you to read my Review of the film and my Interview with the directors, David Bowers and Sam Fell. Be sure to also not miss the Many Flushed Away Clips & Videos we have posted.