How Andy Serkis went from playing Gollum to directing his first movie — and the pressure of making a non-Disney ‘Jungle Book’

Andy
Serkis.
Astrid
Stawiarz/Getty

Known for being the master of the motion-capture performance
following his roles as Gollum, King Kong, Caesar (in the “Planet
of the Apes” movies), and currently Supreme Leader Snoke (“The
Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi”), Andy Serkis is throwing a major
curveball on all of us for his feature directorial debut.

“Breathe,” about the life of Robin Cavendish — who became
paralyzed from the neck down from polio — and his wife Robin, is
a traditional biopic that is fueled by the performances of its
leads Andrew Garfield as Robin and Claire Foy (Netflix’s “The
Queen”) as Diana. The intimate love story is a departure from the
usual CGI-focused work Serkis is known for. The movie was made
through his production company, The Imaginarium, which mostly
focuses on mo-cap projects.

But this is only a brief departure.

The opportunity to make “Breathe” came to Serkis while he was in
post production on an extremely ambitious project: A live-action
“The Jungle Book”
movie for Warner Bros. that will feature a lot of big name actors
doing mo-cap of the legendary characters that were brought back
to the zeitgeist after Disney’s CGI blockbuster release of its
own “Jungle Book” movie in 2016.

Business Insider chatted with Serkis in New York City about
finding the time to make “Breathe,” why he’s completely okay with
movies resurrecting deceased actors through CGI, the status of
“Jungle Book,” and how he created the Snoke voice.

Jason Guerrasio: You run The Imaginarium with Jonathan
Cavendish, the son of the main characters of “Breathe,” Robin and
Diana. How did you meet him?

Andy Serkis: Jonathan had seen a film I had made
called “Sex & Drugs &
Rock & Roll” about Ian Dury, who was a polio sufferer,
and a punk rocker first and foremost, and he loved it and began
telling me the story about his father. And then he told me he had
been developing the script for five years. So we started The
Imaginarium.

Guerrasio: So basically you were like, good luck with all
of that with your family script.

Serkis: Yeah, it wasn’t really the idea I was
looking for. We were looking for other directors to direct it.
And then I took the script home and I was just floored by it. It
was just so incredibly powerful and emotional and you never read
scripts like this in terms of the emotional content of it. So I
was like, “S—, I’m having lunch with him tomorrow and I think
I’m going to pitch me directing his parent’s life story.” So I
did.

Guerrasio: At this point it’s just script stage, no
talent attached.

Serkis: Right. None. And he said, “Yeah, let’s
do it.” So we started developing it and then “Jungle Book” came
along and we started working on that and then that became a long
preproduction. We shot “Jungle Book,” principal photography,
worked on it for a year and a half, and then this weird
opportunity came up in the long post production we’ve had. Andrew
and Claire became available and we raised the money in seven
weeks and we shot the whole thing in seven weeks.

“Breathe.”
Bleecker
Street/Participant Media

Guerrasio: Was that a nice time to shut off the part of
your brain that was focused on “Jungle Book” or while making
“Breathe” are you juggling that as well?

Serkis: Juggling lots of plates.

Guerrasio: But was it fun to shoot something that wasn’t
going to be as heavy motion-capture as “Jungle Book” is?

Serkis: I was so looking forward to it. This joy
of seeing the performance at the end of the day rather than
waiting a year and a half to see how a character is going to turn
out eventually was a joy.

Guerrasio: Is that the big difference of directing
“Breathe” versus “Jungle Book,” the immediacy of it?

Serkis: In many ways it’s the least complicated
shoot I’ve ever done. On “The Hobbit” for Pete Jackson I was his
second unit director, so that was my first grand scale experience
as a director. Stepping onto a set with 150 crew and working for
200 days straight. The technical side of it was a huge education.
So I felt prepared when I went into “Jungle Book.”

Guerrasio: Was it nice to go back to basics, so to speak,
of traditional filmmaking with “Breathe?”

Serkis: The simplicity was tied together with
the brief shooting days. On those big projects you have nothing
but time, this was like we have to get all of this in seven
weeks. There was pressure. I didn’t want to just make a film that
felt like a drama-documentary that’s handheld and not lit well. I
always wanted to make it cinematic. It’s based on truth but I
wanted it to feel like a fairy tale which gradually gets stripped
away towards the end of the movie.

Guerrasio: What did Jonathan think of the movie?

Serkis: He was by my side every day.

Guerrasio: But it’s one thing if you make a biopic and
the person it’s based on is still alive, you may meet them
briefly and maybe they’ll come out and do press. This is the son
of the main characters right next to you. Was it more
pressure?

Serkis: We’re such close friends, it was a joy.
And he’s so objective about his life. He wanted to see it from
the outside. That was a gift.

Guerrasio: So you found the right guy to be your business
partner.

Serkis: [Laughs] That’s true. It could
have gone horribly wrong.

VIDEO

Guerrasio: What’s the latest on “Jungle Book?”

Serkis: We’re in a really good place with it. We
shot the performance capture, it’s live-action, so we shot in
South Africa with this amazing young actor named Rohan Chand. Our version
is darker in tone to the Disney one. Which I loved.

Guerrasio: So you have seen it?

Serkis: Oh, yeah.

Guerrasio: You didn’t feel like, “I can’t see it, I have
to go in fresh with mine.”

Serkis: No. No. Because I just wanted to make
sure we weren’t covering similar ground and I don’t think we are.
There was a point where we were neck and neck, these films were
potentially going to come out within months of each other.

Guerrasio: Could you sit back and enjoy Jon Favreau’s
movie and not analyze the heck out of it?

Serkis: When we were shooting at the same time
there was a bit of that worry, but I knew our script was for a
PG-13 audience. It’s a story about identity and we’re using
performance-capture as opposed to the whole jungle being CG. So,
honestly, you can’t think about the other one, you focus on what
you’re doing. I love where it is. We have designed these animals
that you can very much see the actors’ faces we have — Cate
Blanchett, Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch — in them.

Guerrasio: So you’re just deep in post right
now?

Serkis: Yeah. The animation is flowing. I think
it’s in good shape.

Guerrasio: I would like your thoughts on motion-capture
in general. We’ve now had CGI versions of living people — Michael
Douglas in “Ant-Man,” Robert Downey Jr. in “Captain America:
Civil War” — but also people who have passed away — Peter Cushing
and Carrie Fisher in “Rogue One” — is there a certain line the
industry should not cross in regards to using the tools we
have?

Serkis: You mean digital resurrection?

Guerrasio: Exactly.

Serkis: I think if it’s handled with taste and
it honors actors who have passed and their families are happy,
the estates are happy, if it’s done in a respectful way, I think
that’s perfectly fine. But there has to be a good reason for
doing it. Dramatically. Storywise. I mean, I think digitally
resurrecting any character from history, Abraham Lincoln could
have been performance-captured or Winston Churchill for that
matter, it’s a way of doing it. It’s so funny because we love
real stories and bringing people back to life through them. Think
of how many actors have done an impersonation of somebody else.
Wouldn’t it be great to have the real Elvis Presley or someone
through 3D imagery?

Snoke in “The Last
Jedi.”
Disney/Lucafilm

Guerrasio: The recent “The Last Jedi” trailer has Snoke’s
voice prominently featured. How did you come up with the
voice?

Serkis: When I first worked on it with [“The
Force Awakens” director] J.J. [Abrams] there was an evolving
design of the character. It was going through lots of changes.
But it’s all about where a character carries his pain, or
aggression, or emotional centers and with Snoke it was very much
there [putting his hands to the back of his head]. And
his skull has got this big scar in the front, so for me it was a
fracturing. He’s got this cleft in his head and I think it’s very
painful for him to speak and yet there’s an imperiousness about
him. He’s severely damaged but there’s a vulnerability that’s
he’s trying to cover so that was sort of what I was trying to do.
 

Guerrasio: I’d like your thoughts on the recently
news about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment and
assault. Weinstein was an executive producer on all the “Lord of
the Rings” movies. What’s your reaction to the
revelations?

Serkis: I think there’s no excuse for a culture
that allows for any kind of bullying or coercion on predatory
behavior and I think we are behoove not just in this industry but
across all industries to be vocal about that and to encourage and
help and support people who are brave enough to come out and to
challenge people who are in positions of authority if they behave
badly. That’s it.