Andrew Clement G. Serkis is an English actor, director and author. He was born April 20, 1964 in Ruislip Manor, West London, England. He is popularly known for playing (through motion capture) Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he earned several award nominations, including the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Two Towers. He played the title role in the 2005 King Kong remake and earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of Ian Brady in the British television film Longford.
Andy has three sisters and a brother. His father, an ethnic Armenian, named Serkissian, was a Medical Doctor working abroad, in Iraq, and the Serkis family spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East. For the first ten years of his life, Andy Serkis used to go backwards and forwards between Baghdad and London. His mother was busy working as a special education teacher of handicapped children, so Andy and his four siblings were raised with au pairs in the house. His family’s original surname had been “Sarkisian”.
Young Andy Serkis wanted to be an artist; he was fond of painting and drawing, and visualized himself working behind the scenes in productions. He attended St. Benedict’s School, a Roman Catholic School for boys at the Benedictine Abbey in London. Serkis studied visual arts at Lancaster University in the north-west of England. There he became involved in mechanical aspects of the theatre and did stage design and set building for theatrical productions. Serkis was a member of The County College, and part of the student radio station Bailrigg FM. Then Serkis was asked to play a role in a student production, and made his stage debut in Barrie Keefe’s play ‘Gotcha’; thereafter he switched from stage design to acting, which was a real calling that transformed his life.
Serkis’ other roles have included Caesar in the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin (2011). In 2012, he will reprise the role of Gollum for The Hobbit. Many of Serkis’ most prominent roles, including those in Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, have involved him being the subject of motion capture to animate and voice a computer generated character.
He owns one of two prop rings used in “Lord of the Rings.” The other went to Elijah Wood, who played Frodo Baggins. His performance as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy is ranked #10 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time. He based the voice of Gollum on the sounds his cats made while coughing up furballs.
Serkis lives in Crouch End, North London with his wife, actress Lorraine Ashbourne, and their three children: Ruby (b. 1998), Sonny (b. 2000) and Louis (b. 2004). Serkis was a vegetarian but started to eat fish during the filming of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He writes about it in his book Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic, published in 2004. Serkis was born to Catholic parents and though he has been described as an atheist since his teenage years, he is drawn to the karmic possibilities of energy transference, specifically “the idea that your energy lives on after you”. Serkis is an Arsenal F.C. supporter.
Andy Serkis Photo Gallery
