While the sweeping New Zeland vistas, standing in for The Shire and other parts of Middle-earth, are one of the compelling attractions to the cinematic adaptations of Tolkien's work, it could also be argued that one of the other standout factors - on both a creative and technical level is 'Gollum'...
Andy Serkis, the established actor who has also rapidly become the go-to guy for performance-capture projects (such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes and King Kong), is now forever linked to the character of Sméagol/Gollum. Serkis brings the movement and the voice to the character, with the visual effects providing the visual touches. As anyone who has seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy - and now The Hobbit - knows, the finished result is creepy and amazing in equal measure.
Serkis admits that while he was glad to reprise the character for Jackson's latest outing, he had no idea that his involvement would be so extensive this time around...
"I was only supposed to come back to New Zealand for two weeks to reprise Gollum. A month beforehand I got an e-mail from Peter saying 'Would you like to come down and direct the second-unit...' The chance to complete the journey in Middle-earth was very special and suddenly grew to two hundred days of shooting. I had the most incredible experience elarning from one of the world's greatest film-makers, with an amazing cast shooting beautiful New Zealand and in the comapny of dwarves. It was really, really extraordinary..." he explains.
"It was fantastic to come back and rekindle my relationship with Gollum and Sméagol and get to play one of my favourite scenes out of Tolkien's road for Gollum," Serkis continues, referencing the film's important first encounter between Gollum and Bilbo Baggins. "It was the first thing we shot for the movie. Day 1 of 276 was Martin (Freeman) and myself in Gollum's cave kicking off that scene. The way that Pete (Jackson) wanted to shoot it was like a piece of theatre. We basically shot that scene time and time again and it was incredible to watch Martin finding Bilbo's character. We enjoyed bouncing off each other and creating that scene.
Serkis says the evolution (or perhaps devolution is a better word when looking at the effect the cursed Ring has upon the character) of Gollum was all about finding an element of the character that made him unique, a 'hook' on which to hang all the elements - both dark and sympathetic.
"Obviously, as an actor, you're putting yourself under the microscope. So with Gollum/Sméagol it was an opportunity to run riot. One of the great things about this role is that he's... very complicated. You feel sorry for him, you feel pity for him, you hate him. When we first worked on the character in Lord of the Rings, we felt it was very important to ask 'What does the Ring mean to all of the characters?' If the Ring was given to you, how would YOU deal with the Ring of Power? When we were creating Gollum it was that he has a weakness of character by definition - Smeagol wasn't able to cope with the power of the Ring. It was important to find something very real that it could eman to you. For me, it was all about addiction. Gollum is entirely based on the notion of addiction. The way that the Ring possesses him, makes him craven, lustful, depraves him physically and psychologically..."
The character's voice is also a memorable factorand Serkis spent a lot of time trying to find just the right cadence and tone.
"'Gollum is called Gollum because of the way he sounds...' writes Tolkien and the voice had to be bound up with that. I wanted something that was very emotional and to do with his psychology. Where did he carry his pain. It was going to be in his throat... he killed his cousin Déagol (by strangling him) and that felt the place it needed to be. I had to find something like an involuntary action that would spark off the physicality. The short-version of the answer is... a cat. A cat coughing up furballs was the way we found to get into Gollum's voice..."
Though Gollum only has one real scene/sequence in The Hobbit, it's a memorable one and it once again proves that the character (and the actor behind it) will be long remembered in not just the halls of the goblins, but also in Hollywood (and New Zealand)...
