[BlackTree TV - New York] Francesca Amiker goes one on one with the Alpha Ape, 'Ceasar', played by Andy Serkis in the prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes and digital director Joe Letteri. "I don't think there's such a thing as a performance-capture or motion-capture actor," Andy Serkis says. "Any actor can do it. I've just embraced it, is all." Indeed he has. The 47-year-old English actor still makes a mark in the occasional "face time" role, starring as rocker Ian Drury in "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" and doing loads of supporting characters on the big and small screen. But he is "the king of performance capture," says David Germaine of the Associated Press. Serkis pretty much invented the sort of acting with his groundbreaking turn as Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" movies. He played the great ape King Kong, has two roles in this winter's performance-capture animated "The Adventures of Tintin," and is reprising Gollum in Peter Jackson's two-part film of "The Hobbit." And Serkis is the simian hero in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," which opened Friday. For each performance, Serkis dons a dot-covered suit and has dots painted on his face. Computers and computers "capture" his performance, which is then animated. Serkis calls this "digital makeup," and notes how much more expressive and subtle it is than the rubber prosthetics and masks that actresses from Kim Hunter to Helena Bonham Carter have had to wear to play apes in the earlier films. In a decade of doing ...

• published: 05 Aug 2011
• views: 4099
• author: blacktreemedia