Andy Serkis Walked On All Fours In Public To Prepare For Gollum In The Lord Of The Rings

To prepare for his memorable role as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings series, actor Andy Serkis would go on very long walks on all fours. He shared this anecdote with The Guardian, and as you can imagine, he worried what people might think. So when he came across someone on an all-fours walk, Serkis pretended like he was looking for something.

“I used to walk on all fours off set when we were filming Lord of the Rings,” he said. “I spent a lot of time in preparation for that [as Gollum]; I would go off for walks on all fours for hours. I did occasionally come into contact with other people, so I just had to pretend I was looking for something. It’s fair to say that’s pretty method.”

Serkis was praised for his role as Gollum, and specifically for how it helped demonstrate the viability of a human actor portraying a creature with a mix of motion capture and CG. After The Lord of the Rings, Serkis would go on to play other CG characters like Caesar in the new Planet of the Apes movies, as well as Snoke from the Star Wars series. Serkis also played King Kong in Jackson’s movie of the same name, while he portrayed Baloo the bear in his own take on The Jungle Book called Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle.

In the world of video games, Serkis portrayed Monkey in the Ninja Theory game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. He also has a role in the Star Citizen single-player game, Squadron 42.

Outside of his voiceover and motion capture work, Serkis is a veteran and accomplished actor, recently starring in the MCU movie Black Panther. He’s also lined up to play Alfred in the upcoming The Batman film alongside Robert Pattinson.

Also in the Guardian piece, Serkis said he was glad he was in his late 30s when he made The Lord of the Rings. If he were younger, the fame might have crushed him, he said.

“I don’t think I could have handled the sort of fame Lord of the Rings sparked if I’d been younger. I was in my late 30s when it exploded,” he said. “I’m grateful it happened when it did. It was an extraordinary time; so many things came out of that experience and whether I like it or not that role lives with me on a daily basis. It will never go away.”

Serkis will re-live his Lord of the Rings experience once again as part of a special Alamo Drafthouse event where he’ll appear alongside other stars and Jackson to help the movie theater industry rebound amid the pandemic.