Andy Serkis has been one of the most genius actors in the last couple of decades largely because he’s been absolutely brilliant. He’s shown the kind of aptitude that you might never have expected from someone that’s doing stop motion and has brought to life characters that people have absolutely loved, reviled, and just couldn’t get enough of. The kind of characters that he has been responsible for are mostly reworked through CGI but it’s his voice and his acting skills that have managed to bring them to the big screen and to where people can see and either cheer for or root against them.
Seriously, he’s way too talented to not be winning more awards than he has.
5. Supreme Leader Snoke-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
At this point people should just expect that Serkis is playing the part behind many of the CGI characters you see on the screen since he’s in such high demand. As Snoke a lot of people didn’t even know it was him until they saw the credits rolling. Even then it’s hard to tell since behind the CGI ‘mask’ you really can’t see anything that would be considered to be a distinguishing characteristic.
4. Ulysses Klaue-Black Panther
It’s kind of rare these days that you get to see Serkis playing a role that allows him to go without the CGI effects that hide him away from the world. But he plays a character in his own skin just as well as he does when being forced to wear the stop-motion gear that he dons every time he has to come in for another role that’s been specifically suited to his talents. Here though he at least plays a great character that should have survived.
3. Kong-Kong: Skull Island
By now you should know that Serkis has kind of cornered the market on playing an ape in the movies. He’s shown that he has the right kind of act and the ability to make the part look at least passably real. Some critics would disagree when it comes to Kong since he doesn’t walk like a normal ape. But then think about it, he’s NOT a normal specimen since gorillas don’t tend to be as tall as mountains.
2. Caesar-War for the Planet of the Apes
Even as sad as this moment is it’s kind of necessary since Caesar’s been a symbol to his people since the uprising. His end was kind of inevitable after a while, and it will be interesting to see if they make any more Planet of the Apes movies after this since enlisting Serkis to take up another iconic role would almost seem like cheating. At the very least it would be like trying to wring blood out of a stone.
1. Gollum-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
This is where a lot of people got to know about Serkis since as Gollum he became one of the most well-known characters in all of fantasy. The sneaking, conniving creature that accosts Bilbo first and eventually fights with Frodo within the interior of Mount Doom has been one of the more prominent characters in LOTR for many a year despite being buried by so much prose.
I’ll say it again, Andy Serkis is a genius when it comes to his acting.
