- published: 01 Jan 2015
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Rupert Wyatt (born 26 October 1972) is an English writer and film director. His debut film was The Escapist, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2008. His second film was Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).
Born and raised near Winchester in Hampshire, Wyatt was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and Winchester College, Winchester.
Wyatt is the founder of the film collective Picture Farm, which has produced numerous shorts, documentaries and features, including the Sundance Award-winning documentary Dark Days.
He also co-wrote and directed the British prison escape thriller The Escapist (2008), starring Brian Cox, Damian Lewis, Dominic Cooper, Joseph Fiennes, Seu Jorge, Steven Mackintosh, and Liam Cunningham. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2008, was nominated for eight international film awards, and was the winner of two. In March 2010, he was selected to direct Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise, which was based on a screenplay by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The film was released on 5 August 2011 to mostly positive reviews and grossed more than $481 million worldwide.
Andrew Clement "Andy" Serkis (born 20 April 1964) is an English film actor, director and author. He is best known for his performance capture roles comprising motion capture acting, animation and voice work for such computer-generated characters as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), the eponymous King Kong in the 2005 film, Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Captain Haddock / Sir Francis Haddock in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Upcoming motion capture roles include Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars Episode VIII (2017), Caesar in War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), and Baloo in Jungle Book: Origins (2017).
Serkis' film work in motion capture has been critically acclaimed, and he has been called the "godfather of motion capture". Serkis has received an Empire Award, a National Board of Review Award, two Saturn Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his motion-capture work. Serkis also earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of serial killer Ian Brady in the British television film Longford (2006) and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his portrayal of new wave and punk rock musician Ian Dury in the biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010). In 2015, he had a small role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Serkis has his own motion capture workshop, The Imaginarium Studios in London, which he will use for his directing debut, Jungle Book: Origins.