Andy Serkis on Working with Hulk and Ultron in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
Not only does Andy Serkis have a human character part in Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, but he also played a behind-the-scenes role in helping bring the Hulk and Ultron to life with the help of motion-capture. In a recent interview with Empire Magazine (via: CBM), the actor discussed both of these characters and how they will be portrayed in the movie. He started out with Ultron, saying,
"We did some work on Ultron. On the development of Ultron before James Spader came on board. In terms of movement styles: was he gonna be human-like? was he gonna be robot-like? So we worked with a bunch of different people, from body-popping experts to dancers, to this guy called Neil who's nearly eight feet tall..."
He then went on to talk about Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk:
"We gave Mark weights, we had voice projections so he could do his Hulk roar. On screen we could have a virtual representation of the low-res avatar of The Hulk, so he could come out and feel that sense of scale."
So far, from what I've seen from these characters in the trailers, they look freakin' great! I think it's pretty rad that Serkis has been able to turn his motion capture character work into a lucrative career. When talking about working with Ruffalo and Spader on the art of motion capture acting, he said:
"It's a journey I end up going on with the actors. To find out what they want to get out of it, and and [sic] what we can do to help them so it's still them authoring the role. Initially when you're asking them to put a grey suit on, they're not very into the idea. But it's usually within the first hour, when they can see the result of them being in that suit [on screen] in real-time, they settle in. And then they've lost themselves in our world. James in particular - he loved every minute of it."
It seems like it would be so much fun being a part of a movie like this. These actors are lucky to be a part of something so cool! Then the money they make from it isn't that bad either. Serkis is a talented guy, and I would love to see him get nominated for his role as Caesar in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. He at least deserves the nomination.