Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away.
Looking back, when I was Gollum, I suppose I did break the mold to a certain extent. I'm proud, and very thrilled, to be a part of that.
In performance capture roles, it's not a committee of animators that author the role, it's the actor. I think that's a significant thing for people to understand.
What you can do with visual effects is enhance the look of the character, but the actual integrity of the emotional performance and the way the character's facial expressions work, that is what is going to be created on the day with other actors and the director.
I've always been really in touch with my primal instincts. In my profession, you have to be.
The art of transformation is a very important thing to me, and I always believe I can say something more truthful through characters that are further away from me.
People think, 'Oh, well how can 'The Hobbit,' which is one book, become three films?' But you can take one line from an appendice and it turns into a whole sequence.
If it was a great script and a great character, I would love to do a romantic comedy.
And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.
After 'Kong,' my knuckles have never recovered because I had to wear very heavy weights on my forearms and around my hips and ankles to get the sense of size and scale of the movement of the character... You are telling your body that you are these things and that you're feeling these thoughts and that you're experiencing these experiences.
I had a cat called Dizz, after Dizzy Gillespie.
You never really know why you become an actor: it's a visceral thing, an emotional thing.
You could go so wrong with a 'Planet of the Apes' reboot; you could make it melodramatic, you could make it campy, you could fall into so many traps with it.
Before I became an actor, I was a visual artist, and I've always hankered for the storytelling behind the camera.
Having done a lot of theater, I'm used to sustaining characters over long periods of time.
Great actors like Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page and Samuel L. Jackson will go and do a videogame, because they understand that storytelling isn't just necessarily about filmmaking.
As I started to research gorillas, I began to understand that they're all totally individual and idiosyncratic, and they have their own personalities.
Gorillas have a belch vocalization, which is sort of like, 'I'm OK, you're OK.' They do a pig grunt, which is reprimanding. They sing, they laugh, and they hoot, which grows into a chest-beating display.
Gollum's never really gone too far away from me because he's indelibly kind of printed into my DNA now, I think.
Mountaineering has always been a huge hobby of mine.
I'm a shockingly bad sleeper. In bed very late. Awake at the crack of dawn.
The whole chameleon thing about acting. That's why I'm moving towards directing - it's a much more healthy occupation.
I think parenting is very different now. We're totally governed by our children!
I do have anger management issues. Not clinical. Probably no more than most people.
Did you happen to catch the film I did between 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Kong?' It was a nice little Jennifer Garner comedy, '13 Going on 30,' and I play her boss. In my big scene, I get to moonwalk - pretty well, I thought - to Michael Jackson.
That's why I ended up going to Lancaster University, because they had a visual arts course, and in the first year it was like a broad visual arts course in sculpture, painting, graphics - all of that.
Actors' performances in films are enhanced in a million different ways, down to the choice of camera shot by the director - whether it's in slow motion or whether it's quick cut - or... the choice of music behind the close-up or the costume that you're wearing or the makeup.
People will come up to me and try and be secretive and say, 'Can you do the Gollum voice for me?' And I'm like, 'Are you kidding? It's 8:30 in the morning on the Victoria Line.'
J.J. Abrams and I met, and we just had this incredible kind of vibe between us.
I'd like to think that we strive in film and theatre to tell great stories, and I believe in the power of storytelling in our culture.
I think I'd like to be a lion tamer, actually. That - that would provide the most audience entertainment if something went really badly.
I think I have a lot of internal energy, which does need to come out.
Middle-earth is a universe I know very well.
In 'Tintin,' it's like a live-action role. You're living and breathing and making decisions for that character from page 1 to page 120, the whole emotional arc. In an animated movie, it's a committee decision. There are 50 people creating that character. You're responsible for a small part.
The fact of the matter is that an actor, if I'm playing a performance capture role and you're playing a live action role and we're having a scene together, there's no difference in our acting processes.
I believe that when people experience an event as a community, it can transcend and change people's lives.
The wonderful thing about 48 fps is the integration of live action and CG elements; that is something I learned from 'The Hobbit.' We are so used to 24 fps and the romance of celluloid... but at 48 fps, you cannot deny the existence of these CG creations in the same time frame and space and environment as the live action.
What's fantastic is that there's a real growing appreciation for performance-capture technology as a tool for acting.
You don't really think about 3D when you're acting. As a director, you do.
I had to relearn how to ride a horse like an ape. I had to change how I jumped off and how I gripped them with my thighs and distribute my weight differently.
Thank God for Skype!
Every age has its storytelling form, and video gaming is a huge part of our culture. You can ignore or embrace video games and imbue them with the best artistic quality. People are enthralled with video games in the same way as other people love the cinema or theatre.
Playing a character in a video game is different to other performances because your character can't lead the audience of players in one direction.
Gollum is entirely based on the notion of addiction. The way that the ring pervades him, makes him craving, lustful, depletes him physically, psychologically and mentally.
Recently I read that half the world or more has read 'The Lord of The Rings,' but then I found out that something like 75 per cent of the world knows the 'Tintin' books.
If I hear someone say something, and they're 100 per cent about it, then it's almost inevitable that I'll take the opposite view. I guess I feel at odds with things like society. Absolutism is always a trigger for me.
In the same way 'Lord of the Rings' was an interpretation of the book, 'The Hobbit' is being treated the same way. It will be faithfully represented with a fresh interpretation.
Not a day goes by where I'm not reminded of Gollum by some person in the street who asks me to do his voice or wants to talk to me about him. But because 'The Hobbit' has been talked about as a project for many years, I knew that at some point I'd have to reengage with him.
I think acting really helps as a director. It's just no question, because you totally understand the acting process.
