5 'Gollum Actor' Andy Serkis' Best Performances, Ranked

The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves, is currently playing in theaters. It features a brand-new cast that brings The Batverse's many heroes and villains to life. One of them is Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's longtime butler, confidant, and father p. The fact that this Alfred has quite a history is undeniable, but the movie skips over a lot of its character development. How did Alfred end up in this situation?

The Hollywood Reporter recently conducted an interview with Serkis, in which he spoke candidly about playing Alfred. The actor saw Alfred as someone having a military background that still influences how he conducts himself, in stark contrast to Bruce Wayne's character:

"Alfred is very much out of sorts. Being a military man, he is used to rules and regulations, structure, and precision. I wanted him to have that military solidity in the way he dressed and carried himself, which is ruffled by Bruce’s nihilism and refusal to listen to him anymore. It’s a relationship built on shifting sands."

Prince T'Challa, the new king of the technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda, returns home following the events of Captain America: Civil War. T'Challa soon learns, though, that rival factions in his own nation are vying for the throne. In order to keep Wakanda from being dragged into a global conflict when two enemies plot to destroy it, the superhero known as Black Panther must work with a C.I.A. agent and Wakandan special forces.

Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis are among the outstanding cast members of Black Panther, which also stars the late Chadwick Boseman. It's a fun fact that Wesley Snipes had intended to direct a Black Panther movie in the 1990s, but the idea fell through. Serkis portrays Ulysses Klaue in the 2018 movie, a Killmonger-affiliated black market arms trader, smuggler, and gangster from South Africa.

The legend of the monstrous ape towering over the city in the original 1933 movie is based on the timeless King Kong tale. The 2005 King Kong remake was directed by Peter Jackson, the Academy Award–winning filmmaker behind The Lord of the Rings series, The Lovely Bones, and Heavenly Creatures. This hugely popular movie, with stars like Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Andy Serkis, and Colin Hanks, ended up making over $500 million at the box office and has an 84% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the CGI and other special effects that surrounded his performance, Serkis' performance as the title character proved to be more difficult than we might have anticipated. After the movie's debut, Serkis compared his iconic Lord of the Rings character to the Kong character in an interview.

"Immensely more difficult because so much of Gollum was his voice and the way he spoke. The character emanated from his - he's called Gollum because of the way he sounds; the physicality came out of the voice. I had to get myself into certain physical positions to make that voice really work. He explains to other people, his predicament, and he talks to himself in very rich dialogue from talking - from Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh. And that was one of the biggest challenges, how we were going to convey that range of emotion with a so-called mute character like Kong. Of course, once I started researching gorillas I found out that they used a lexicon of vocalizations; that was a big key to it. You found out that they sing, they chuckle, they have very specific ways of communicating within a group and just the breath, actually."

The epic 2014 sequel from Matt Reeves surprised audiences just as we were beginning to think the Planet of the Apes franchise was losing steam. In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Serkis plays Caesar, the leader of a growing nation of genetically evolved apes that is threatened by a group of human survivors of the deadly virus that was released a decade earlier. They manage to forge a tenuous truce, but it is short-lived because both parties are forced to the verge of a conflict that will decide which species will become dominant on Earth.

A stellar ensemble cast for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes also includes Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. It was also a financial success, becoming the series' highest-grossing movie with worldwide box office receipts of over $710 million against a $170 million budget. Even better, it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

Gollum is another character who ought to have gotten Serkis at least an Oscar nomination. Given its popularity and large fan base, The Lord of the Rings has been an important part of cinema since the early 2000s and is not likely to disappear any time soon. Similar to the wide variety of outstanding characters in franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Lord of the Rings has given audiences some of the most memorable moments and incredible characters that have defined a generation of fantasy moviegoers.

A hobbit named Frodo Baggins lives a carefree life in the Shire until his uncle Bilbo leaves behind "the One Ring to rule them all," which must be destroyed to bring peace and order to Middle-earth. The original trilogy, which is based on J.R.R. Tolkien's acclaimed books, follows Frodo as he struggles to destroy "the One Ring to rule them all." It only makes sense that the best characters in the upcoming new Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power be reviewed and remembered for the legacy that they brought to the series.

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