Q: You spent time in Rwanda working with actual great apes to research your performance as King Kong. Talk about that. What was it like working with the apes? Were you ever in any actual danger?

AS: The story starts slightly before then working at the London Zoo. I spent a lot of time at Regent's Park Zoo with the four gorillas there, three females and one male. One of the females was called Zaire, who I particularly formed a relationship with. The thing about gorillas in captivity is that they reflect human behavior a lot more than gorillas in the wild because they're surrounded by human beings from birth. Zaire, she chose me. She beckoned me over, and we got on very well. The male of the group, Bob, didn't like me at all. He intimidated me on a number of occasions. He didn't really have the ability to be an alpha male because he'd been brought up in a circus with chimpanzees. He didn't have the social etiquette to know how to be an alpha male with these three females, so they found it frustrating, and he found it frustrating. And I was in the middle. He used to take it out on me a bit. He threw a whole pile of rubble right at me when I was video taping him and it scratched the lens of my camera.

I spent two months at the zoo, and then I had the chance to go to Rwanda. Seeing them in the wild is just another thing altogether. You're watching them in groups now; twenty three beautiful gorillas was the group that I was watching. You see the whole structure and hierarchy of a family in operation 12,000 feet up in a volcano. It was quite magical really. To have nothing between you and them is phenomenal. I was with Diane Fosse Gorilla Fund International, who monitor their welfare. They're habituated gorillas so they're used to human beings but they didn't know me. They spotted me immediately as the odd man in the group because they hadn't seen me before and were very curious with me.

We're supposed to keep this seven meter distance between us and them so we don't transmit human diseases. We share so many of the same genes it's very easy to transmit disease from us to them and that can be fatal and wipe out a whole group very, very quickly. So I had a paper mask. They were very curious about that. Two of them were a bit more cheeky. A couple of the youngsters would come running past and give me a bit of a thump. The one time, and I didn't necessarily feel in danger because I'd been grilled in etiquette and how to respond, but there was a charge by one silverback that took me by surprise because they're so fast. There's very little warning. It's all in the eyes. Then they stand their ground, and then they strut, and beat their chests with open hands, as opposed to clenched fists, which is what they did in the original KING KONG. They have inflated chest sacks, which when they hoot, opens up and sounds like a very taught drum, or wood blocks. And they beat their hands [on their chests] seventeen times a second. And that can be quite scary. But you're not supposed to move. You're supposed to defer. But it's all bluff. It's all display. Unless you transgress that. And then you're through. [Laughs].

Q: Was performing Kong more difficult than performing Gollum in the LORD OF THE RINGS films?

AS: The difference between the way we captured facial expressions between [Kong] and Gollum was that with Gollum, my face was shot on 35mm film, and then the animators copied my facial expressions and key-frame animated that. With this, it was directly from 132 markers on my face, which then drove the CG face of Kong. Of course the animators then enhanced that, particularly with the muzzle movement because that's very hard to do with a human being, particularly the way the jaw moves. The eyes are particularly representative of the acting choices that I made. And the whole physicality of they way that Kong is, is portrayed through motion capture.

Q: When Kong is sort of playing with the Ann Darrow character, did you have a little Naomi Watts doll to work with?

AS: Yeah, I did. I had…several different Barbie dolls which were weighted with lead shot. Then I had a slightly more malleable rag doll weighted with lead shot that I could push with my fingers and pick up so their was some weight to it.

Q: How did you connect Kong's performance with Ann's live action performances?

AS: With motion capture, there are two stages to creating a character. One is obviously the on-set performance, and working opposite Naomi. That was crucial for her performance and synchronizing our performances so that we were playing very specific moments together. Everything that she was doing, I was able to respond to, everything I was doing, she was able to respond to…the same way that in any acting performance, you have someone else standing…off camera. Peter's prime aim having an actor playing Kong was that the actress playing Ann Darrow didn't have to imagine what Kong would be like. She wouldn't have to make decisions about what he might be doing. I was doing those things, and Naomi could respond to that. Naomi is phenomenally adept…and wanted the connection. Had it been another actress who wanted to do the performance by herself, it wouldn't have worked because it is all about the connection between the characters.

The second part of the process was when we came to the motion capture…and I got a chance to experiment with the personality and the character of Kong. I would then work off [Naomi's] shots and her close-ups. I was looking down at monitors for the less physical scenes where he's static, or sat down, and he's got Ann in his hands or is looking down at her. I'd play specifically to her shots. That's how we synchronized the performances. In that motion capture phase, which was two months after principle photography…I just gave them lots of choices in terms of performance and how close Kong would be to human behavior, and how close Kong would be to gorilla behavior, and how we expressed his emotions. We experimented for weeks and weeks and weeks until we cracked the character. That's the joy of working in that way. You can just sort of keep going. That's the two step process for creating Kong.

Q: It's been said that you had a lot of input into one of the most affecting scenes in the film, between Kong and Ann Darrow in Central Park. How did that come about?

AS: When we were experimenting with how Kong reacted to being put in Times Square once he jumps out of the theater, he's suddenly freezing cold, and he's got this slippery stuff that he's never encountered before in a tropical rainforest. [Ice.] I started experimenting with him slipping and sliding. My original version of that scene on the motion capture stage was him slipping, and him spinning around and sort of gathering up all these cars and trucks and people between his legs. Peter…always had this intention of creating a scene between Ann and Kong which turned into this magic moment in Central Park. It was originally going to be a Christmas tree, and Kong playing with the lights with an innocence about it. So we transposed my idea and had King slipping on the ice with Ann Darrow, and that became their moment of reprieve.

Q: Audiences get to see you take a more prominent role in this film because you play not only King Kong, but also Lumpy, the ship's cook. Lumpy is around a lot longer than Smeagol, the live action role you played in LOTR. I know there's a good reason for this, but as a matter of acting technique, I was curious why you chose to have Lumpy close his right eye for most of the picture.

AS: It's all to do with the fact that he's spent years cooking and smoking a cigarette at the same time. He always has to work with his two hands because the ship is moving and he's cooking, so he can't hold the cigarette in his hand, and the smoke always goes in his eye. It just becomes a habit for him.

Q: Did you wear a special suit that helped you feel more like Kong?

AS: There were two suits that I wore. One, which was on-set, was a gorilla muscle suit that was for me really, to make me feel weightier and heavier. I used arm extensions sometimes. And I wore gorilla dentures, and had a full kind of crest [on my head]. The other was a tighter suit with sensors that was used for motion capture.

Q: You did some vocalization for Kong. Was it more difficult than your voice acting for Gollum?

AS: Immensely more difficult. So much of Gollum was his voice, and the way he spoke. The character emulated from this. He's called Gollum because of the way he sounds. I had to get myself into a certain physical position to make that voice really work. He explains to other people his predicament, and he talks to himself, so he's got very rich dialogue. The biggest challenge was…'how do we convey those emotions with a mute character like Kong?' Of course, once I started researching gorillas and found out that they use a lexicon of vocalizations, that was the key into it. They sing. They chuckle. They have very specific ways of communicating within a group. In order to achieve a real performance, the way that I was directed, I had a sound system for Naomi to respond to. On the motion capture stage, they recorded sound as well, so the sound is linked to the physicality. The breath, as the chest expands and contracts, you have that breath happening for real, and being recorded. There wasn't ever a sense of it being an effect with a sound effect stuck on top. It was enhanced of course, beefed up. Amazing things are done with the original sound that I made, but it emanates from a real living breathing creature creating those sounds in synch with a physical performance. In that sense it's not that different from doing dialogue. There's a range of emotions, and experimenting with finding out who he is.

But he's unlocked by Ann. He as a character is changed and transformed by her. Years and years and years of this suppressed socialized behavior, that cycle is broken with her and he's freed to certain extent. Someone described Kong when they were looking at him as an old psychotic hobo. He really is. Although it's a gorilla's innate desire to connect with other beings, he's just not used to it. The only contact he has is with creatures that are trying to attack him, or threaten him. We found that Ann Darrow is an entertainer, and that's her way of surviving and the way that she engages Kong. Gorillas have a sense of humor. They do. They have a huge range of emotions. Finding the humor there was a big key to their relationship.

Q: Should we expect more motion capture in your acting career, or will we see you in more flesh-and-blood roles?

AS: I don't see the difference between flesh-and-blood and motion capture. For me, acting is acting, and what I've done with Gollum and Kong is no different to any other character I've ever played. It's just acting to me. It's all to do with character and script. If someone came up to me and said, here's a great CG role, and I thought the script was amazing, it wouldn't make any difference.

See Andy Serkis, Lumpy The Cook, and KING KONG smash their way into theaters on December 14, 2006.

Post Script

Like all Peter Jackson's films, an unprecedented amount of research, craft, and art went into the creation of the world of KING KONG. Incidentally, if you want to get a unique and detailed look into the creation of KONG, check out the production diaries over at kongisking.net, or pick them all up in the two-disc Peter Jackson's Production Diaries set. I have this DVD set, and it's fascinating to watch the process unfold. If you never went to film school, these are great to watch as well, because Jackson and crew go into depth about camera choices, slate setups, props, art direction, concept art…all very well done, fascinating, and dare I say it? Educational.

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