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| Andrew the Great |
Andy Serkis is an international treasure. I shudder to think of cinema without him. More on that later. For now, my feels.
He has taught me that I really have only a modicum of control over my Manflesh obsessions, dictated more by chance associations with the general seasonal flow of intellectual pursuits that occupy most of my time and attention. Clearly, I saw this one coming, as LOTR has conveniently asserted itself as the minor to my major study of Shakespeare. Having re-read The Silmarillion and watched all the movies as is the tradition every December, it was a natural progression for me to seek out the comforts of Tolkien as I entered my fortieth year. The last time I actually read Fellowship and Two Towers and Return of the King was in college, when all the films were coming out. It was high time to return to Middle Earth as I enter middle age.
Fortuitously for me, inspired by his eleven-hour marathon reading of The Hobbit for charity during COVID lockdown, Harper Collins approached Andy to formally record the entirety of The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy audiobooks, and they’re all available for free thanks to my local library (WOOT). Had this man recited half a dozen Shakespeares this way, he could not have done a sexier thing in my eyes.
And you better believe it’s sexy AF.
Imagine Uncle Andy reading the world’s longest bedtime stories to you, doing all the voices and giving so much drama and perfection that you end up audiating his vocals of nonpareil timbre even when your AirPods need a recharge.
Note on the recordings: Andy personally enjoyed performing Tom Bombadil the most, and while I do not begrudge him this little personal thrill, Tom’s still the most obnoxious character J.R.R. ever created. And TBH, after a while even Treebeard grew tiresome. The notorious Council of Elrond chapter, however, was mercifully well done.
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| Look at this sweet, sweet man |
Andy has been in a million things and has rightly remained very busy ever since he dazzled us with Gollum and Smeagol. Over the years, my favorite of his appearances include The Prestige* (2006), Inkheart (2008), Einstein and Eddington (2008), Burke and Hare (2010), Black Panther (2018) and his directorial venture Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018). His reprisal of Gollum in The Hobbit: And Unexpected Journey (2012) was nothing short of brilliance. And say what you want about King Kong (2006), Andy delivered big time. (And those production diaries that PJ posted online throughout the production were fun and informative and valuable as a document of filmmaking in themselves).
I also saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) when it came out but never screened the other two movies in the trilogy… until now. Oh boy. That was a huge blind spot for me indeed.
To say that I was impressed and pleasantly surprised at their quality would be a gross understatement. The second instalment was far better than the first, partly because it didn’t have James Franco in it, but mostly because both the (pandemic apocalypse!) storyline and the visual effects had advanced in leaps and bounds. Then the third one… oh Lordy. Andy gives a Shakespearean performance in what is essentially a revenge western (in the vein of The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) or Unforgiven (1992)) with deeply Biblical themes, except Ceasar is a less problematic—though no less compelling—Clint Eastwood. War for the Planet of the Apes (2018) ticks off all my boxes, including the greatest of all: STEVE ZAHN, who plays an eccentric but helpful ape in the most touchingly Zahniest way. Things got misty at the end, and I found myself brimming with feelings. It was a swell piece of entertainment.
Chalk it up to Andy’s je ne sais quoi, but I cannot get enough of the intense looks he pulls to lend Ceasar his badassery.
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| Such a pro |
*swoon*
In this year of our Lord 2023, Andy is nigh on 59 years old (on April 20th!), so he has shifted a bit from his highly physically demanding roles to directing and imagining on a regular busy ass schedule. Andy co-founded The Imaginarium studio in 2011, and has helmed some features there, such as Mowgli and the Andrew Garfield/Claire Foy romance Breathe (2017), proving that he’s got a squishy, nostalgic heart. In 2016, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and legendary director Gregory Doran (whose husband Sir Antony Sher played Thrain in the extended version of The Hobbit films, BTW) collaborated with The Imaginarium to produce a “digital Tempest” starring none other than Simon Russell Beale.
As if Andy hasn’t baited me enough already, he played Iago, Florizel, and the Fool in Othello, The Winter’s Tale, and King Lear respectively, while he was doing theatre work as a younger actor. Give me… a few minutes... to just… imagine these things. OK. Yes. Right. Moving on.
Right now (and by “right now” I mean the last decade probably), Andy is hard at work on the upcoming animated feature Animal Farm, which is evergreen in its sociopolitical relevance, but feels more and more so every damn day. He will portray Benjamin the donkey as well, and I cannot wait to see how he brings this classic (and heretofore oft-required high school reading) book to life in our censorship-obsessed world.
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| Perpetually evolving |
Perhaps the purest testament to Andy’s incalculable charisma (and chutzpah) is his portrayal of the ineffable Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll** (2010). Even my inveterate appreciation of this man could not prepare me for the juggernaut of character he conjured. It seemed Andy was riding with the lwa of the late punk rocker, both channeling and controlling his spirit as a master. It is vanishingly rare to see such keen skill in an actor, and rarer still to see it given a perfect opportunity to shine. It was all the rest of the cast could do to merely keep up with him, I’m sure.
Most recently, I checked out Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023) on Netflix. I had seen some half dozen episodes of the series an age ago, so I had an idea what I was getting into—mainly, Idris Elba being generally awesome as a noble but flawed DI in London. This feature-length film struck me as a high-budget audition for both Idris + Andy to be the next James Bond + Villian. And I’m all for it. Let’s get on it. Andy, for his part, was particularly proud of his character’s notable hairstyle, especially since it’s NOT a wig. His coif is as versatile as his acting, to say the very least.***
*le sigh*
For two decades Andrew Clement Serkis has been an indelible force on screens around the world, starring in some of the most ginormous motion picture franchises and properties (LOTR, Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, Marvel films) on an global scale. He’s passionately thrown his entire being—limbs, face, voice, soul—into his work, conjuring and channeling iconic characters with aplomb. It’s become a truism that he’s THE multitalented trailblazer of performance capture, serving not only as the ambassador of the oft-misunderstood technology, but as its catalyst. Teamed with Wētā FX since the days of Gollum, Andy has consistently proven that “digital makeup” can eliminate typecasting altogether and help filmmakers tell stories with characters heretofore impossible to bring to life.
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| The Annie Leibovitz portrait |
I could go on. And on and on.
Anon anon, sir!****
But let’s wrap this with his aesthetics. He is THE FACE and THE VOICE. And THE ARMS. His granitic hugs are legend. Just the right percentage of hirsute. He’s a goddamn mountain climber, folks. Hiked the Matterhorn in 1996. Runs and bikes to keep fit. Gorgeous. Human. Being. Never boring. Always hot.
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| HNG |
One last thing: a fun fact! Andy’s mum is half Iraqui, his dad entirely so, and he spent much of his childhood between Middlesex and Baghdad. This, I believe, partially explains why I think he’s looking more and more like a blue-eyed Omar Sharif as he ages. Which is, you know, totally fine by me.
*The Prestige is Chris Nolan’s best film, fight me.
**A better musician biopic than Bohemian Rhapsody, fight me.
***I love it when it’s naturally curly AF and piled up high.
****Francis, 1 Henry IV, Act 4, Sc. 4
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