Andy Serkis is that actor that everyone knows but nobody knows, because he’s Hollywood-s leading motion-capture artist and you rarely actually see him. He’s had traditional roles of course, such as Tesla’s assistant in ‘The Prestige’ (headline pic), but he’s more famous for roles like King Kong in, um, ‘King Kong’, Gollum in all the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies, Caesar in the new ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies (the latest of which is getting extremely positive – early reviews), and now he has roles in ‘Star Wars VII’ and ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. Or maybe he doesn’t.
I mean ‘Star Wars’ is clear, but I have no idea what he’s saying to Variety about ‘Avengers’…
With producer Jonathan Cavendish, (Serkis has) co-founded performance capture studio the Imaginarium, which serves as a consultant on films, including the recent “Godzilla.”
VARIETY: You’re involved with both “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Star Wars Episode VII.”
SERKIS: The Imaginarium is the performance capture consultant, and I’m playing a role (in both films). On ‘The Avengers,’ I’ve been working closely with Mark Ruffalo.
VARIETY: Will we actually see your face?
SERKIS: I’m not at liberty to mention.
Well we already knew he was consulting on ‘Avengers’, but he’s being oddly coy if “role” means he’s also playing a part. And if he is, is it some one-line character written in as a nod to movie dorks in the audience or is he actually doing the motion-capture for something? And if so, who, because every known character is accounted for. Or is there actually someone in it we don’t know about?
If only someone had been there to ask him these questions, and then, you know, report back to us. A report-er, if you will. Way to drop the ball, Variety. This isn’t ’20 Questions’, you know, you don’t lose points if you ask a follow-up.