Andy Serkis, Vol. II

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1:23Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins.

1:30Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. We have an absolute icon in the house today. Andy Serkis. He's Gollum. He's Ulysses Klaw. He's Snoke. He's King Kong. He's also the director of the new film Animal Farm, and we're talking about all of it today. Thanks guys, as always, for checking out the podcast, for subscribing. Remember, hit that subscribe button if you haven't already on YouTube, on Spotify, however you're doing it. before we get to Andy, super quick reminder, as always, patreon.com slash happy, say it confused. We're doing so many events, including the Duffer Brothers live in Los Angeles, May 13th, LA.

2:08Come on out. I don't get out there often to do these live events. So if you're a Stranger Things fan, if you're a fan of Happy, Say it Confused, get your tickets now. Link is in the bio. We've also got events coming up with Billy Eichner, with Stanley Tucci, with Charlie Cox. So much. That's all in New York. All the information is in the show notes and at patreon.com slash happy. Say I confused. Okay. A quick little intro to Andy Serkis. Not that he needs one. He was here to promote Animal Farm, which is, of course, is based on the iconic book. This is an animated film. It stars the likes of Seth Rogen and Woody Harrelson.

2:42A great piece of work from Andy. Always happy to support what he's up to. But also this was a good opportunity for a deep dive into, yes, Lord of the rings and a little sneak peek at the hunt for golem which andy is returning to star in as golem as smeagol and also as the director a huge opportunity for him very excited about that we talk star wars though we talk apes my favorite arguably one of my favorite franchises going his performance as caesar absolutely iconic um he's one of the good guys he can talk with expertise like nobody else about performance capture he's the guy that really made that art form what it is This was a blast.

3:20So without any further ado, please enjoy me and the one and only Andy Serkis. Andy Serkis, back where he belongs on Happy, Sick, Infused. It's good to see you, man. Congratulations on everything. Thanks, man. Okay, so we're spreading the good word today. We're going to start on Animal Farm. We'll dive off a little bit. But Animal Farm is, look, movies take a while. All movies are labors of love. And some are more labors than others. This is a long labor. This has been gestating a while. probably as long as I've known you, maybe we've been talking about this one. You could have given up a long time ago.

3:53Why is Animal Farm the passion project it is for you, man? It just was one of the first books that really spoke to me and hit me hard as a kid growing up. And I remember reading it vividly, reading it on the bus to school. And I just had a sense that this kind of fable, this fairy tale that had darker themes underneath. And I think it was a kind of similar moment for me that realising that literature could do that, that two things could be going on at the same time. So I then saw a theatrical production of it at the National Theatre in London. And I kind of thought, one day I'd love to do a version of this.

4:33And then cut to years later, we're making the Planet of the Apes movies. And there's the moment in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the first one, where Caesar, you know who's been incarcerated in the facility with with all these other disparate group of apes he leads them to freedom and in break they break out and i thought wow there really hasn't been an a version of animal farm for a long time there was the 1954 right animated version then there was a 1990 kind of animatronic version real live action with some real animals in fact right um And I just thought this is the time to do it. And we just started the imaginary in my company.

5:14And this was going to be the first film that we were making. And it was going to be performance capture back in the day, of course, right? So that's a big shift, needless to say, to go from performance capture to traditional animation. And I know I've heard you talk about this a little bit, but give me a sense. Like, was there a lightning bolt moment where you accepted, you know what? As much as I love performance capture, it's not the right medium for this. Yeah, it felt like, I mean, if we'd gone down the performance capture route and we had prepared, we spent a long time kind of working out how to make the pigs work physically.

5:44And, you know, we experimented with all sorts of things to, you know, to create the box of the Shire Horse and all sorts. You know, we even brought in, you know, the stage show, The War Horse. Right, yeah. Right. We even brought in The War Horse and we put markers on The War Horse and had the puppeteers. Right. You know, so we were doing all these experiments with performance capture. Then we sort of realized that if we make it a live action performance capture driven movie like the Apes movies, it would it would have inevitably become a darker film. Yes. And we'd have to engage on a level of reality that that perhaps was going to make it lose its innocence.

6:21Yeah. And or the covering or the wrapper of a of an innocent fable. And so we sort of pulled back and we thought, no, we really want to make this for a young audience and accessible to a young or to a family audience. Right. Where the purpose became, let's make this a debate between young inquiring minds and their parents and their grandparents. you know so because that's and and and sort of so this was back in sort of 2000 and I suppose 2014 15 and way before political events have come to how they are now and and the world that we're living in you know this 15 years later from when we first started and it just seemed to becoming more and more relevant the story just seems to scarily become more and more relevant yeah I saw you wearing the hat at your premiere last night, at midnight, make Animal Farm fiction again.

7:14Yeah. I mean, sadly, Animal Farm will probably always be very resonant to an audience. But talk to me a little bit about how the meaning of it has changed for you. You just alluded to this in recent years. Why is this film, you know, why do we need this? Why do kids especially, why does the young people you think need to wake up and see this movie, you think? Because, you know, we are living in such complex, difficult times where you know the themes of the book really examine obviously power corrupting, absolute power corrupting absolutely and disinformation, misinformation, fake news and the destruction of truth as a value that we you know used to uphold and it just seems increasingly and rapidly and sort of heading towards this time when nothing you know we we don't care somehow we just are stopping caring maybe it's over you know being hit so hard with with imagery day in day out of horrific things around the world where we become desensitized or we shut off and go the other route and we sort of lose ourselves in in in a way that is unreal and not connecting so and especially for young minds it's like how do we navigate this yeah how do we actually have serious kind of conversations about about important things but but also not lose i mean animal farm is a book it's got a lot of humor in it sure you know and it's ironic and and and and very funny it's outright funny at times so so we we wanted to to make a version of this film that really spoke to to yeah the family but but it was going to be an entertainment too so you can't lose sight of that but it's kind of like you're like drawing them it's like come on it's it's Zootopia just come on in but no no wait there's something a little bit more heady behind it and I think that's why I mean we all I think probably most of us I remember reading Animal Farm when I'm a kid and like you also feel kind of like I don't know cool and adult when you kind of realize there's something more behind it that's right we all kind of had that epiphany whether it's a book or a film you're like oh like I'm I'm learning the nuance behind this.

9:31Absolutely. And that is, I mean, that's a great word to describe, you know, where we're at. We're losing the art of nuance because everything is very black and white. Everything is right or wrong or evil or great or, you know, it's not, there is, the discussion isn't happening and all the listening isn't happening and the empathy to be able to listen is, we're losing. And that is why it is crucial at this time. And so we had to make some adaptations to the novel to kind of really dig into those themes. And one of the things that I was excited about exploring was putting the audience in the mindset of the animals.

10:19And that doesn't happen in the book because it's quite objective. You know, the story is, you know, it's actually the pigs, although they're important characters, are very off stage characters in the book. Right. And I wanted to get right into the bunker of where they were to see what was going on, where the power was being held. And but also at the same time to take a young piglet. We created this character, Lucky, who becomes the conduit for us into the story. this young innocent pig who considers himself just an animal just one of the one of the animals on the farm that has come through the rebellion and created this utopia and there you know they have freedom and and then who becomes corrupted and being made to realize that he is he is part of the elite he is he's not just an animal he's a pig and and the separation of those and I think that's one of the key key things in our film it's really saying are you an animal or are you a pig and as he becomes corrupted by this by this not not sort of overtly evil character but a fun loving avuncular joker kind of you know populist figure that that you can't help not like because it's seth rogan it's very smart casting to kind of war you in with that because like who doesn't love seth and he engenders so much goodwill and then you're like this is an interesting arc for this guy.

11:47I mean, I was going to talk about the cast. The cast is stacked. You've called in some friends, some new friends. Is Woody now like a good luck charm? Woody Harrelson, you've worked with him a few times. Woody and I have become very close friends. And we've worked both on stage now. We did a theater piece a couple of years ago, which was incredible. It was the first time we'd been on stage for, well, I hadn't been on stage for 22 years and Woody hadn't been on stage for 18 years. And so we sort of held each other's hands and said, come on, let's do this. Yeah, yeah. It was an amazing play.

12:19But he, I mean, he loved the book as well. And I think the fact where we got lucky with our cast was because everyone adored the book and saw the value. Well, they trust you too. They know. Well, I hope so. But, you know, like you say, you know, I mean, but people like, for instance, Seth, Jim Parsons and Glenn Close, we approached 12 years ago and they stuck with the project. you know Woody came on board because he loved the character of Boxer and then we and Gaten Matarazzo was perfect to take this young innocent piglet role and who becomes corrupted and then the scales fall from his eyes and he realizes he has to make amends you know and Iman Valani you know who who again she she adored the book and and so we gave her two characters to play and you know one sort of populist pig following kind of you know worshipping the leader and then the one who is the kind of the Jiminy Cricket who's the sort of the conscience of the piece and and brings Lucky Gaten's character back to back to earth.

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16:54I have to say, we've probably talked for virtually all of your projects, it seems like over the career. And to see your trajectory, especially as a filmmaker, is really remarkable. For those that don't know kind of the origin story, it's connected, of course, toward the rings. It's very much Peter Jackson calling you up, correct me if I'm wrong, and saying, second unit, Hobbit, are you in? I mean, could it be argued that Peter, for a variety of reasons of casting you as Gollum and also making that phone call, is the most important professional, I don't know, godfather in your career? Without question.

17:29Without question. I mean, Peter's been so loyal. And he saw very early on, while we were making Lord of the Rings, that I wanted to direct. He knew that I wanted to direct. In fact, some of the scenes on Lord of the Rings, I actually directed some of the Gollum Smeagol, the Smeagol scene where he and Deagle fight. The back and forth in Two Towers? No, no, not that one. In The Return of the King where Smeagol and Deagle fight. Right. for there was a there was a reason why what one day you know Fran Walsh who's gonna be directing it and and Pete was directing another unit and then that didn't happen and so pizza will you direct the scene and so say cuz and he'd seen a short film that I've made and he just knew that I wanted to direct you know a lot of trust in someone like that's like I mean you know this now is someone that directs yourself absolutely to make that phone call yeah yeah who knows no and it was it was it was literally it was an incredible day actually because it was a day that we got the funding to start the Imaginarium which is my performance capture studio and it was the very same day Pete said phone me up and said look we want an sort of someone who knows about performance to direct the second unit on the Hobbit because we've got 13 dwarves we've got an enormous ensemble main cast who are going to be going between units So so rather than sort of like a stunt director or, you know, just, you know, which which you sometimes get on with the second unit, you wanted someone who could understand performance and how to elicit performance.

19:02So I mean, talk about full circle like we're going to be talking about this. I know in more detail down the line, but it tells me for a second because your next project is the hunt for God. I know. I mean, this is so exciting. I just had Elijah Wood in here talking and I asked him what, you know, I'll ask you and I don't mean it as a negative, but like, I think a lot of people when they heard about this was like, why? Like, why does this story need to be told? And what Elijah said to me is like, trust. Trust the integrity of this project. This is all the people you love doing it. Can you sum up for me, though, like why this story needs to be told?

19:36I think, look, I really don't want to give too much away about it because we will be talking about this further down the line probably in about a year's time. but there is so much more to be dug out of this very complex character the most perhaps complex character that Tolkien wrote because he kept revisiting it as well you know multiple times and so there was a desire for a series of return to Middle Earth movies and this seemed to be a great way in to be able to bring some of the cast back but also see this is a very much more intimate story. Yeah. And a deep dive in psychological investigation into a character who has become, you know, sort of absorbed into the public consciousness in rather a large way.

20:30So it sort of feels like there is a real relevance. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'll give you an example. The whole notion of addiction that we ascribed to the character of Smeagol Gollum and so many people over the years who I've met at conventions, who I've met, you know, or who I've met randomly who've said, I really relate to that character. I totally relate to the inner voice in my head. And all, you know, addicts who I've met who've said that, you know, Gollum really spoke to me as a character and helped me through difficult times. So I think there's still a wealth of stuff to be got out of the character.

21:10And it sits very neatly between the Hobbit trilogy and The Lord of the Rings. And it's a great way, I think, of bringing your audiences back into this world. Is Gaunt the protagonist? Is Strider the protagonist? Like, who's the hero of the story? I say nothing at this point about the story. We won't talk about the story. Can I just say, though, you announced the cast last week at CinemaCon. I'm very, very excited about this. Everybody is. It's obviously a mix of some familiar faces. Ian McKellen is back. Of course. Pace is back. Elijah is back. Yeah. But you've cast the hell out of this with some new faces, too.

21:45Indeed. Leo Woodall, if you don't know his work, he's got the goods. He's amazing. Kate Winslet, we know, has the goods. He's all right. She's okay. You know. And I have to say, Jamie Dornan is a buddy, and I adore him. Those are big shoes to fill. Can you just talk to me about, like, I know there was some discussion of Vigo, and I assume, like, he's just not in the place where he's interested in doing that for a variety of reasons, all good. but like casting that can you just talk about like why jamie was the guy for you i i really really don't want to go into it right now because i do want to say that for you know further down the line and and it we're at a kind of crunch stage now just about we're just about to start shooting that's what i'll say you know we're not far off shooting okay so so i'm gonna save all discussion about casting um other than that we are thrilled that jamie's doing i mean we're you know absolutely thrilled.

22:38And by the way, so is Viggo. Oh, good. Yeah, he's absolutely thrilled. Seal of approval, that means a lot. 100%. That's good. Well, he's a class act, as we know. He really is. Yeah. Let's just take a step back, even beyond Lord of the Rings, because people know this, but when I rattle off the credits, your place in pop culture is unsurpassed, sir. Okay, so Gollum, King Kong, Alfred, Ulysses Klaw, Caesar, and not one but two great Star Wars characters. And that's like, we haven't talked about theater and all the other live action stuff. Like, just give me a sense of like, I mean, you know, you can't like bask in that every day.

23:14But when I list something like that, that's a nice feeling, I would imagine, for you, Andy. It is. And look, you know what, if you'd said to me when I was starting off acting that I would be involved in these projects at this level, you know, at this scale, and then directing at this, you know, these kinds of movies, I just wouldn't have believed it. I, when I started out as a theatre actor, I fully believed that, and I was lucky to work in a theatre that thought it was providing a service to a community. It was a very community-oriented theatre, and you felt like you were really doing something for the community, you know, and that you were telling stories that were communicating with them.

23:51And that was good enough for me. I felt like acting always had a purpose. you know that you weren't it wasn't just a self-serving kind of vain activity that it really and and I was taught that by the first director I ever worked with theatre director Jonathan Petherbridge he's you know that was the ethos of the company so I've always believed the storytelling is a massively powerful tool for change and for and for connecting with audiences and so to be able to you know 20 well however many 25 years ago I wish you know 40 years later to have been through these journeys, it's incredible. And the meaning of all these characters, like everybody you meet every single day, it's just like they're all the tattoos, what they've meant to their lives.

24:39These are not just things that go through you. These are things that really change people. That's right. I mean, you realize the power of storytelling is actually our savior at the moment, I think. You know, finding truth through allegory and through fictitious worlds, but allow us to say something about the human condition that you know that's it's really been the backbone of what I've always my approach has always been and then to be able to enter into that world of actually creating characters using the technology to enable you and that's sort of a 21st century actors tool that enables any actor to play anything is is really kind of it is like stepping through the looking glass and I count myself incredibly fortunate.

25:23All right, let me rattle off, related to some of these roles, some quick questions on each of these. So like, you know, I adored the Apes movies. I'm obsessed with what Rupert did, what especially Matt Reeves did in those last two movies with you. I mean, so much of it was about physicality, especially in the beginning when you didn't really have much speech. But like, do you remember in Rise, like, as I recall, it's essentially no and Caesar is home. Like that's essentially all you had to work with. Absolutely. Like the effort, the thought that went into kind of like how you were going to deliver those lines.

25:55Do you remember that? I do. I do. And I did base Caesar on a real life chimpanzee called Oliver, who was very human like in his behavior. He used to sit. He would literally sit across, you know, with his legs crossed. And he had very human facial expressions. And in fact, he became a subject of a lot of DNA experimentation in the 70s. He was taken around the world to find out if he was the progeny of a human being and an ape. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, they finally decided his DNA was an ape. But he literally had a face that looked much, much more human. You can see on YouTube. You can find Oliver.

26:40And he was completely bipedal, which is not how chimpanzees move. Right. but so that was that was the sort of the way the way in for me but I remember reading the script for rise and and it was just the power of that it was a great script by it by Richard Rick and Jaffer and Amanda silver yeah and it was it didn't read as an ape it just read as this amazing character and I almost forgot he was an egg because he was because he was brought up as a human with humans and then thrown into a facility with apes I mean the art of through those three films. It's like, what a gift for an actor. Unbelievable.

27:19I mean, again, to play a character all the way from sort of infancy through to death over the course of three movies. Not only that, but it's not just seeing an ape grow up. It's seeing an ape gain conscious, human consciousness, gain kind of, you know, a new physical vocabulary in each of the movies and a verbal vocabulary and the way of signing and the way of communicating. But also, I mean, Caesar literally is one of my favorite characters because I think I wish more world leaders were like him, really. No, no, totally. He's got humility. He's got strength. He has empathy. Yeah. You know, and he's a great leader.

28:05He's a really great leader. I'll follow him over Koba any day. I would not follow Snoke as a leader. No. He's still in there. So Snoke, when JJ came to you with Snoke in Star Wars, did he position him as the big bad that was going to be there through the trilogy? I don't really know. I can't really remember. It's sort of a blur with Snoke. Snoke is the one character that was a massive challenge because he was sort of evolving in terms of writing as we were going along. Within even that first film or even like you're talking into the second film? from that into the set into the second yeah but i mean so it was still unclear i think where where he was at what what he actually represented in that first film right and um so that so it was it was that that was challenging plus the physical the physical difficulty of being up on it because it was pretty much a you know a hologram for the first rape film so he was i was 50 feet away and 30 feet up, you know, away from my scene partners.

29:11So, you know. Hi down there. How's it going? Save some crafty for me. Yeah, exactly. You know, so it was, look, not that that was entirely alien to me. I played King Kong, so I knew what it was like to be a different scale. Why are they keeping me apart from the cast on all these movies? What do they know? Yeah, exactly. But he, yeah, he was, it took a while to really get into the headspace of that character. and actually it was, we did facial capture and vocal kind of work, you know, after the main shoot, me and JJ. And we then started to find him more and to define him. But it wasn't until the second film that I kind of really felt I knew who he was.