(Cover) - EN Movies - Andy Serkis says his directing duties on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey came completely “out of the blue”.
The star is best known for his performance-capture acting roles, including his portrayal of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He’s reprising the character for the series’ upcoming prequel The Hobbit and was thrilled when director Peter Jackson appointed him second unit director too.
“That really came out of the blue! Peter's known for many years that I wanted to direct, and over the last ten years, I've been directing performance capture for short films and video games while gearing up to do my first feature,” he explained to Vulture.
“But it was not long before principal photography started that Peter e-mailed me and said, ‘Look, we'd love you to come and be second-unit director.’ It was pretty much a shock! But it's extraordinary.”
Andy is thoroughly enjoying working behind the camera as well as in front. He still has a long way to go until the movie is wrapped but he couldn’t be happier.
“We've been shooting now for about 135 days, and we've got about that much to go, and it's an amazing experience,” he smiled. “The second-unit crew is a huge unit, and it's like we're shooting a movie ourselves.”
Over the next few years Andy wants to concentrate more on directing. Having worked with some of the best in the business including Peter and Steven Spielberg, he is confident he has the knowledge to succeed.
“At the moment, I'm very clearly devoting myself over the next couple of years to the directing projects I want to do,” he confirmed.
“I've got a live-action movie that I hope to be doing soon and also a performance-capture movie that I want to direct. I'm not going to stop acting, because I adore and love it, but directing is calling to me at the moment. It really is. And I've gotta go with that, you know?”
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