Gollum Isn’t Letting Andy Serkis Sleep as THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM Takes Over His Life: “It Has Been Insane”
Gollum has been living inside Andy Serkis’ head for 26 years, and apparently, the little creature has no intention of giving the actor a good night’s sleep.
With The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum bringing him back to Middle-earth, Serkis is finding that his relationship with the character is getting even more complicated.
Serkis recently wrapped filming on the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie, which is scheduled to hit theaters in December 2027. This time, he’s not just returning as Gollum, he’s also directing the film, which means he’s spending an awful lot of time with a character who already occupies a pretty big part of his brain.
The 62-year-old actor has enjoyed getting back into the role and exploring different sides of Gollum, but juggling the performance with directing has made for an unusual experience.
Speaking with The Times, Serkis described returning to the character after all these years as “insane” and admitted that Gollum has been keeping him awake at night. His mind keeps running through conversations with the character, including questions like, “Am I directing you, Gollum? Or you me? Are we arguing?”
He added, “My mind is… busy.” It's pretty funny to imagine Serkis lying awake at night arguing with Gollum over who's actually running the movie. After spending more than two decades bringing the character to life, though, it makes sense that the lines between actor and character might occasionally get a little strange.
Serkis also spoke with USA Today about his complicated feelings toward the character, admitting, “I do love and hate him.”
That relationship plays a major part in his new memoir, My Pressures, which takes a wonderfully bizarre approach to telling his life story.
Rather than writing a traditional autobiography, Serkis imagines himself sitting around a table with several of the characters he's played throughout his career. Gollum is joined by Caesar from Planet of the Apes and Ulysses Klaue from Marvel, with the fictional characters weighing in on the actor's life.
Naturally, Gollum isn't exactly a pleasant dinner guest. He spends part of the conversation mocking Serkis before eventually attempting to strangle him. Sounds about right for the nasty little creature.
There's also something interesting about the way Serkis describes carrying these performances around long after filming ends.
He explained that actors don't always leave their characters behind when they walk off a set. Taking on another personality can affect the way they think, move, and feel, sometimes making it difficult to “decompress” afterward.
Serkis even compared the experience to being “chemically changed” as an actor adjusts physically and mentally to inhabit someone else's identity.
Considering how much of his career has been tied to performance capture and transforming himself into characters like Gollum and Caesar, it's easy to see why those roles have stuck with him.
Now, with The Hunt for Gollum, Serkis gets another opportunity to explore one of the most memorable characters in The Lord of the Rings franchise, only this time he's responsible for guiding the entire film as well.
It's a pretty cool full-circle moment for the actor, even if Gollum is making the experience a little exhausting. Hopefully, Serkis can get some sleep before The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum arrives in theaters in December 2027. But something tells me Gollum isn't going to make that easy.