Happy Sad Confused - Andy Serkis

Episode Date: July 13, 2014

Andy Serkis, the insanely talented actor behind Golem and King Kong, visits with Josh to talk about his awards-worthy performance in “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, the misconceptions of performance capture, and Star Wars! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, guys, welcome to another edition of Happy Say I Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz. Thanks, as always, for hopefully subscribing to this podcast. Hopefully you're not just a fly-by-night kind of podcast person. But if you are welcome, and hopefully you'll enjoy this one and subscribe and spread the good word. This week's podcast is with the amazing actor, Andy Circus. I adore Dawn of the Pinet of the Apes. As I tape this, the movie is tearing up the box office.

Rightfully so. It's not just a big summer blockbuster entertainment, but it's actually a really thoughtful, well-made smart film, which is so refreshing in the summer movie season. The film is really anchored by Andy's performance as Caesar. As you probably know, if you're listening to this, Andy is at the forefront of what we call performance capture. Obviously, well known for his performance as Gallum in The Lord of the Rings movies and King Kong and he was in Tintin. In addition to many great live action performances as well, but Andy, has truly made a name for himself in the last 15 years thanks to these transcendent kind of performances that are really redefining this new art form, this new way of acting. I hope he gets awards consideration for this one. I know we're only about halfway through the year, and it is a sci-fi film, so it's not the typical kind of awards thing, but it would be really cool to see the first performance capture nomination go to someone like Andy Circus who's meant so much to the medium.

him. He's a great interview. He's a fascinating guy. Super smart guy. So thrilled to have him on the show. I know you guys are going to enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed conducting it. As always, guys, hit me up on Twitter at Joshua Horowitz. I also want to say, let's try this out. Send me a tweet with the hashtag, happy, sad, confused, and I promise you I will respond. I will retweet it. I'll favorite it or I will respond. I'll acknowledge it in some way. I really want to start to have a dialogue with you guys and know what you're thinking about the podcast. So simply tweet with the hashtag happy say I confused. I'll search for that hashtag and I give you my solemn oath. I will interact with you in some way for what it's worth. But in the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy this podcast. And as always, check out what we're doing on MTV.com covering the latest and greatest in movies and music. But without any further ado, let's get right to it. Here he is Mr. Andy Circus. When are you out of, when are you leaving New York? I think I leave in a few, like a literally few hours.

Yeah, like two or three hours. Oh, my God. And so next week is Europe? Next week is Europe. Where are you? Where are we going? We start off in London, so we've got the London press jacket, then we go to Madrid, then we go to Berlin,

and then we're going to Italy. So what are, are we good, by the way? Cool. So are there, having been through several high-profile films? Do you enjoy this aspect of it? I mean, is it's... Yeah, I mean, I enjoy promoting a movie if I'm proud of the work for sure

and this is definitely the case as you should be for this one as we discussed before yeah on behalf of the team you know it's great to go out there and talk about I mean what Matt Reeves has done on this I could talk about that forever and I had the pleasure he was in the infancy of this podcast

you know you hit a film and you move on this is I did Matt a few weeks ago I fell in love with this film and when I knew that you were available I wanted to include you as well especially after seeing this amazing performance and and the body of work that you've achieved not only in the last 15 years, but going back prior to obviously the performance capture

aspect of your career is fascinating. Because when I was looking at the filmography, like any actor's career is unpredictable, but in a town full of unpredictable careers, yours might be the most unpredictable, in that 15 years ago, literally the technology was barely there, and now your name has been built very much on something that is still relatively in its infancy.

I guess the trajectory must just you too, doesn't it? It does. I mean, I was thinking about this and obviously people have asked me many questions in the last 24 hours here in New York, amongst many other places. But I suppose the thing that I thought about most was the fact that, you know, I'd started in theatre, I'd had a kind of big, healthy theatre career and then started acting in film, British independent movies and TV shows and so on. And then, of course, the call came for Lord of the Rings and went down and shot Lord of the Rings. rings and as we were creating Gollum as he was being you know sort of brought to

life as it were in performance capture or motion capture as it was called at the time was sort of formulating and and the methodology around that was being created for that character I didn't really think about it I mean I was just playing the role I went down to play a character and it so happened that this was the particular method of you know playing on set and then going back and repeating in a motion capture volume and and acting with Elijah Wood and Sean and which just felt very natural because we were just acting opposite each other

and then it was being filmed on 35mmeter and then the animators were... I'd go and talk to the animators individually when they were working on individual shots and sort of react bits for them when they're 16 frames when they were trying to work out what that 16 frames meant and what the trajectory of the character was,

the arc of the emotional character and that was all going on and then I thought when Lord of the Rings came to an end and Return of the King, I remember doing pickups for return of the king. And practically the very, very last day of me being on the shoot, and Peter Jackson asked me to then play Kong. And it was like, oh, hold on a minute, this goes on. This is not the end of that. You know, there is a future in this kind of work. I suddenly

thought to myself, wow. And not only that, it's, I'm going from playing an ex-Hobbit, three and a half foot, ring junkie, schizophrenic, you know, you know, Smeagel Gollum to a 25 foot gorilla who is an isolated, you know, thinking, sentient, you know, being that is living in this life of loneliness. What a great opportunity. And then it suddenly dawned on me that, well, this means that you can actually play anything. Right. This technology allows you to play anything. And so that was a real epiphany. That moment was, okay, of course it's, this is part of a journey. And then it went on and then it continued to run. Does it change the aspirations of an actor? Because you mentioned this when we talked last night, too, about, yes, you can

you can literally play anything. You could play a 12-year-old boy or a girl. You could play a rock. You could play King Kong. You know, because traditionally, like, actors, like, build to, like, they're going to play Lear one day. They're going to, those roles that you kind of, like, age into. Do you have that list?

And it must be an expanded list because you can, like, the world is your oyster. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and yet to be design roles, even. You know, and that's the interesting thing for me is the stuff that's yet to be. excavated and created that hasn't necessarily been seen before, not necessarily franchises or characters or characters and books that already exist. And that was really, you know, sort

of 14, 15 years later what the Imaginarium was about the performance capture studio that we've set up. It's a lab. It's for the creation of, it's like taking a lump of digital clay and then bringing in a great director, you know, a great writer, a concept artist and some actors getting them in the room kind of going, okay, well, let's make this character. And if we were to pull the arm up here. How does that go? And what does that do? And where does that fit into what the character that you've written is? And so on. So everything informs everything else. And then very quickly in rapid turnaround, you can have an actor playing that character in a volume and bring something to life. And that, that for me, is really excited. One of the fascinating things

that you said in a previous conversation that really jumped out to me was you said that often it's the filmgoers, the fans that kind of are more savvy about this process than still the industry itself. So approximately 15 plus years in, what are you finding people, the misunderstandings, the misconceptions still are within the industry about performance capture? I mean, there are a few visual effects companies like Weta who have been through this experience time and time again, who have built up a pipeline that fully understand what an authored performance on set is giving to them that they can then extrapolate and with great artistry, with the animators, take those performances and emulate those performances and remain.

remain that they are honoring that performance without bending it out of shape in any way very few people can do that or actually understand that that is the point actually you know it's not to modify or change of points but to yeah it's just like you you you go all out to make that performance work on set between the actors because that's it that is the performance and then I mean that's there's a big difference between that and okay we'll get someone in a motion capture suit to come in and and be referenced so that the animators can then author the character right later on

That is a completely different way of working. It's not to say it's any less relevant. It's just not this way that the work I've done with Wester over many, many years has been geared towards. Could Weddick conceivably save a bad performance? Could they modify change and help someone that's... I don't think they can. No, I mean, if you get a bad performance off an actor, that's never going to... No matter what you can...

No matter what you put into that, it's going to bend their character out of shape. It won't be the performance, you know. So that's why it's critical. And so it sharpens the directors on set to actually achieve that. Because, of course, remembering, for instance, Matt Reeves in this film, we'll go, you know, he'll spend a lot of time blocking out the scenes with the actors, whether they be live action actors like Gary Oldman or Kerry Russell or Jason Clark in this instance. And myself or Terry Notary or Toby Kevill and all of the ape actors in this case.

It will take ages to block it out and work out the nuances of the scenes. and play it through and rehearse it and then we'll shoot it and then we will tweak and tweak and tweak until he gets that performance that he wants so you don't want to do all that work put all that work into the creation of a scene whilst you're burning thousands of dollars

you know with a film crew standing there if you're then going to go okay well we're going to start over and do something definitely. I mean that's not the point so that's what I mean about the authorship on stage. Totally. So going back away as we alluded a little bit to the beginnings of this aspect of your career.

I mean, did you have a sense when you got that part as Gallum and working with Peter that this could change things in as significant a way as it ended up happening? Well, as I say, I just thought that that character was this fantastic anomaly. You know, this was an amazing experience, and off I'd go. And, I mean, I'd always hoped that I would work with Peter again and sort of said, wow, you know, I could... I loved working in New Zealand so much on that trilogy, that first trilogy, and was prepared

to go down there and spend more years down there working with those people because it's such a creative atmosphere and an atmosphere born out of, you know, common, you know, sort of finding a solution through everyone's contribution and that I find really interesting. You mentioned that kind of like big epiphany moment coming out of World of Rings where he brought Kong to you, which is just an amazing prospect. Was there a moment of hesitation where this could pigeonhole me in a way? Because you have become this representative of this new art form, this new way of acting. Was there a hesitancy that this is going to limit me in any way?

I mean, you talk about the ways it expands a career, but can it be limiting in any way. Not really, because I still go back and play live action roles and have done since. And actually, I've had my greatest successes with live action roles since, you know, in between those things. And, you know, I've played a variety of really incredible live-action roles from Albert Einstein to Ian Brady to, you know, Ian Drury, for instance. And, you know, things I've really cared about and worked equally as hard on to define those characters. So it's not stopped me from doing anything. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about apes because, you know, I adore this movie, as many do.

One of the fascinating things in the film that Matt has constructed, it literally begins on your face. It begins on Caesar's face. And without revealing too much, it also closes on that face. Was that always the intent? What was the discussion around that? And I know you've said before, your wife definitely, when she sees or she sees you. You see you too in that opening shot, definitely.

Oh, yeah, most definitely. I mean, I do. I know every single, as does wet, every single inch in my face and the expressions that I am capable of pulling or thinking and feeling which then come through facial expression. through facial expression. But I think what Matt wanted to do was he was very enamored with

what Rupert Wyatt had created on RISE and particularly the sort of the emotionality of Caesar and that character and that's why he wanted to make this movie a Caesar-centric movie. You know, the emotional journey seen through the eyes really of Caesar. So it makes, it made

total sense to open on this eight, ten years later who is now leading a community who is still trying to create the boundaries and the laws and the structure of that community, knowing that humanity has all but sort of faded away. And then, you know, and then this terrible moment of, you know, this inciting incident where they come into the territory and an act of violence spawns a potential escalation of conflict. Of course, Caesar, you know, Caesar is conflicted because he is not, humanity's been a huge

part of his life. And it's, you know, it's all, it's that which he has to wrangle with as well, as well as keep control of the apes, but listen to them. I mean, he's a very empathetic character, Caesar. Do you see this as some people of, and this is, I think, flattering to be in the same company, but I've called this kind of the empire strikes back of this series. We don't know if it's going to end up being a trilogy or who knows how long could go on. But do you see parallels? Do you see where people are, what people were talking about there? I kind of, although I think, I mean, this is in, yeah, I mean, I see what's, I see what's being said. But I think that's because it's gone, it's sort of opened up, and it's become much more of a kind of mythic and kind of epic canvas.

And, you know, when you think about Rise, it was, it was quite a domestic film in many ways. It was shot, you know, it was shot, the first act was pretty much inside Will, James Franco's character's house. And the relationship of Caesar as a chimpanzee. and then the middle section was the ape sanctuary and, you know, the laboratories and then the ape sanctuary, again, quite domestic in many ways. It was Caesar finding his ape and coming together with them. And then, you know, yeah, it breaks out a bit in the third movie.

But this is straight off the bat, an epic movie. Absolutely. And opens up, and also it kind of sees, well, I think it, what's, I think this movie's strength is that it is not a biased movie, is that although it's emotionally centered around Caesar, it also doesn't deny the other characters in the movie their moments of three-dimensional characterization. And every single character has a payoff or is followed through

and you believe their plight. It also ends in a climactic battle that is personal and works thanks to both your performance and Toby Kebbel, who is just amazing as Coba. And because there are emotional stakes, there is this bylaw or law that has been created about ape, not killing ape, etc. What are your remembrances of shooting what must have been a very physically arduous sequence at the end? Yeah, I mean, it was, Toby's performance is outstanding in this. I mean, it's a real breakthrough role.

It's very powerful, and, you know, he plays a very tortured character. Cobra is obviously the ape who was spent most of his life inside a laboratory and unlike Caesar hadn't been grown up with any love whatsoever he'd only seen a tiny little cage as his home and and was operated on experimented on and bears the scars emotional and physical scars of that life so his worldview is entirely different to that as Caesars and Toby totally embodied that

and so when it came to the moments of of conflict between Caesar and Cobra, he was not going to hold back. And also the kind of the brewing up of Caesar trying to keep everything under control was also beginning to rise to the surface for me. So when we do come at each other, it was pretty brutal. Having done this now, the performance capture,

for many years, you must be able to let go of any, for lack of a better term, of being in that suit and on set because you have to go forward 150% in the early days was there any period of being self-conscious about how you looked really to be honest no I mean

it's just you know it's just one of the many things that you have to do as an actor is you know lose yourself in the character and whether that means you don't have a costume you lose yourself in the emotional aspects of the character or the physicality it's it's I mean in many ways for all of the characters I've played you I wouldn't want to

have done it in anything else because there's such physical roles and you want to be able to use your body. So, no, I mean, it's the perfect suit for the job. What are the first things that you used to tell to an actor that is trying this performance capture for the first time? I think the important thing to remember is that it's not just about doing a lot of movement, that you're not trying to animate, you're not being an animator, your job is not to be an animator where you're choreographing yourself. You know, you just have to be in the moment.

and have the physicality of the character in the same way that you would if you were playing a live action role and that stillness is actually even more important because performance character really essentializes what you're doing as an actor and anything extraneous really is picked up so you have to learn a great

you know a sense of you know internalization which perhaps you're more aware of I think of a better example than Caesar frankly I mean there is a stillness there's a kind of regalness a thoughtfulness to every movement, it seems. He's not, he's someone with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and you kind of feel that in the way he carries himself.

Absolutely. So who were you looking to for inspiration? Is it helpful to model Caesar's character on someone else, this go-around? This go-around. Yeah, I mean, I was. I was looking at world leaders and seeing the transformation from when they first get elected through to, you know, four years later. the wear and tear it takes on them.

And, you know, I was very inspired by Nelson Mandela in terms of his, sort of philosophically where he's coming from in terms of leadership. And, you know, Abraham Lincoln is also an example. But so I think alongside plotting Caesar's evolutionary stages, I was, yeah, very much, very mindful of, you know, this is about leadership. And being a good or bad leader is about having open ears

about being empathetic, and yet that can also be interpreted as weakness, and that's a dangerous position for someone like COVID to step into, into what he would perceive as a vacuum. And yet, it's the harder battle. It's the harder, longer battle to actually, if you're trying to achieve a peaceful solution, to keep talking. Have you and Matt talked about the next iteration of this? Matt signed on to do the next one, and then presumably there will be a next one. should the audiences respond as critics are. Have you thought about sort of where you want to see Caesar next go-round? I mean, you know, personally, I'd like to see Caesar on a beach in the sales.

I don't know that would be as entertaining. Drinking cocktails. And, you know, being served canopays by human. No, I am, I mean, Matt is exhausted. He is so tired. Oh, I know. He literally, you know, when I saw him, he was still working on it. It was like two weeks ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it really, you know, literally had to be pulled from his hands. And, you know, so he is not in a state to be, he needs a little time off. And then, I mean, he's obviously got ideas percolating around there. And again, I think going back to what I was saying earlier, what he has loved is this, the evolution of it. And not to feel like you necessarily have to rush too far forward into the future. Because, you know, there's a few thousand years before we end up back at, back at, back at, you know, the original planet of the apes.

It must be a badge of honor that you wear proudly that you have in this career now, a half dozen, at least, roles that are truly, you know, they're iconic. I mean, whether they were iconic before you tackled them or now afterwards, I mean, I can only imagine, like, how many voicemails have you left as Gala for people? How many answering machine messages?

I cannot. I even count. Do you have a standard? Do you say, you know, I don't do requests at this point? I mean because I feel badly for you because I know it must just like your heart must sink a little bit because it's one character in a career of many great characters. I mean

you know look I'm happy to I am happy to do it for people because it does give them pleasure and that's fine you know and it's cool I mean there may be one day where I suddenly kind of go no that was the last one

I remember I mean I do it's interesting because when we went back to to shoot The Hobbit And I was reprising Gollum, you know, sort of 10 years later on. That was a very bizarre situation because I really genuinely felt I was doing an impersonation of something that I had done 10 years ago. And because so many people had asked me... You hear the parodies also from other people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been absorbed into the public consciousness so much. I was like, I need to get hold of this character again. I need to own this again. And that was hard. Fortunately, Martin Freeman, acting opposite him, you know, on day one, it sort of came back. But he was so brilliant. He was trying to find Bilbo for the first time,

because that was the first thing that was shot on The Hobbit. It was literally the day one of the shoot was the riddles in the dark passage. And he was trying to find Bilbaugh and asked him and re-find Gollum not through several thousand answer phone messages. Do you think, I mean, you probably know Peter better than most. Do you think this is truly the end of his fortation

or mortation, his interpretation of these stories? I mean, the appendices everybody talks about, like, will he go to these next? You don't know about the film Rillian? Well, that's what I'm saying. Is it Greenwood? Do we know? No, I don't think. I have no idea. I mean, you know, Pete's capable of anything.

What's your gut to say? No, I think, I think, I think one can safely assume that Pete's Middle Earth is probably drawing to a bit of a close, sadly. And wonderfully as well, because it means it'll offer up a great big space for him to do all the other things that he wants to do, of which there are many, many. Well, that's the thing. like, I mean, it's kind of a double-edged sword. I mean, when we heard that he was, you know, going back to the Hobbit, it was a source of such

excitement. But you also do want to see him create original work, and, you know, he obviously is a visionary unsurpassed. Oh, yeah, yeah. So for you, I mean, your career continues to evolve in fascinating ways in addition to the imaginarium. I know you're getting into directing. Is that something that you've been, has been on the list for a while, and these opportunities

have afforded you now the opportunity to go there? Very much so. I mean, it kind of almost goes back. to college really because I studied as a visual artist and wanted to be a graphic designer when I went to college and then kind of inadvertently fell into into theatre because you had to do a part of your degree in the first year had to involve another subject and I hadn't chosen anything so the theatre studies course was like oh well now I could do that so I was designing sets and you know props and things like that and building stuff

and then started acting and then got into and then after my first year went like I played this one role in a play and decided I want to become an actor So, so the directing, you know, making short films, started way back and alongside, you know, painting. I was painting, I went through a phase of painting actually in my 20s and I thought, actually, I'm never going to share these paintings with them. I want to make film and then started making short films and then got involved in directing cinematics for video games and then direct some theatre and then, of course, Peter asked me to direct the second unit on The Hobbit. And I'd been building up to shooting an independent movie actually before then.

And then Pete asked me to do that. And it was like, this really wasn't supposed to be the first thing I was going to do as the director. That must help the directing reel to point at some stuff from The Hobbit. And just the experience of working with an amazing crew and, you know, a huge, you know, massive crew and shooting at 48 frames a second 3D on a monster production like that. And for 200 days, you know, it was just like... So the Jungle Book will be a cinch? Easy, easy, easy.

I think not. No, I'm very excited about Jungle Book. It really is an amazing project and a great script, and that's kind of why I'm so excited by it. It's a really great script. Without dating you or I too much, I did the math. You were, I think, about 13 or 14 when Star Wars came out. That must have been, this must be amazing for you

that you get to be a part of. Yeah, I mean. Was it a big thing when you were a teenager? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was, of course. I mean, it was huge. and little did I know I mean I couldn't quite

when I was sitting in that room when we did our read-through it wasn't quite an extraordinary feeling thinking wow and particularly I have to say my brother who's five years younger than me this means more to him than anything I've ever done in my entire life

and I'm sort of more joyous for him than myself in a way had you read the script before you did that read-through? Yes yeah yeah yeah yeah I know it was great So was it, I know, I'm not expecting you to reveal anything specific, but I'm just curious, I mean, like literally hearing like Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford do these characters for the first time in over 30 years, that's got to be insane, just to even sit in that room. Did it come to them rather naturally?

Did it feel like the presence of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were alive and well? Absolutely, and that's all I'm saying. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Before I get enticed into saying anything. Fair enough. But as I understand it, your work hasn't yet exactly done in terms of the performance. No, that's right. And is it one character or are you playing multiple in that one?

I can't say. No worries, no worries. Okay. Another topic you can't say too much about, but I know you can be a little bit more forthcoming as Avengers, too, which we're very excited about too. Is Ruffalo also kind of a natural? Is he someone that's going all in in terms of...

He loves it. I mean, he's so grasped this and run with it and wanted to do it. And, you know, he's a real physical actor. Really, really just instinctively knows it. And this time, we were able to, you know, as consultants, working with him on Avengers, able to give him platforms to really deliver to the HULK to the best that he can do. And that's, again, part of the education process I was talking about earlier is certain crews who haven't experienced that before.

Kind of find it a bit funny that someone's coming in, not in costume. You know, imagine you're standing there and you've got someone dressed as Iron Man, you've got someone dressed as Thor, you know, and then you come on in a motion capture suit. You have to be taken seriously. And so it's the performance capture consultancy side of things that they imagine. does, is enable that to happen and give the act of the tools to. And Mark just grabbed it. And, you know, he now has real stature and strength and power as the Hulk,

you know, which took a little bit of time working with the digital avatar in our studio and then giving him a voice, literally giving the Hulk a voice through these huge speakers. And as I understand the technology to the point, too, where he can now look at playback and literally see the Hulk on playback, essentially. That was amazing. Yeah. So when you came on board for that one, it's simply in that consulting role or did the part that came with it evolve or was that part

of the parcel of you coming on? Again, I can't do to talk too much about the part, but we were first of all involved as consultants and dealing with all the performance capture and then I got a great call saying, you know, we'd love you to play this role. Amazing. So the task at hand for Jungle Book, I know Faber has a much different kind of a take. It's based more on I guess the Disney kind of version, right? Has that affected or sped up or slowed down the process?

of your own? No, I mean, they're really two entirely different beasts and, you know, there's definitely room for both movies without a doubt because they just operate in different spheres, you know. Ours is very, very close to the feel and tone of Rudyard Kipling's original book, which is meant for an old audience, so it's more, it's more an ape's audience actually, sort of slightly more, or, yeah, it's a much a darker take and a great, great script written by Callie Clovis, who is Steve Clovis's daughter,

who obviously wrote all the Harry Potter, he's producing on it. And it's, I mean, it's, yeah, it's great. I mean, considering how he used performance capture so well, have you had any conversation with James Cameron about anything just in terms of even consulting, talking, just as colleagues or anything? I mean, I've, you know, spent many occasions with James Cameron

sort of socially and dinners and film sort of events and so on. And in fact, early on in the Avatar process, I went in and talked to them about the characters and talked a little bit with them. But no, I mean, I guess, you know, that whole world has sort of created some great performances. Amazing. I mean, like Zoe Soldana's performance is extraordinary.

And I'm very excited to see what's coming up now. Yeah, I think we have at least two or three more, apparently. I think so. Amazing. I always end this with, I have this sketchy looking Indiana Jones fedora that's filled with random questions. Are you game, Mr. Circus? Go on. All right, so it's up

to you to, I'm putting your own fate in your hands. So grab one or two and let's see what faith has in store for you. The good ones have been ruined by me, the bad ones. Okay. What do we got? French fries or onion rings? The most provocative question of the interview, obviously.

Is this a question, is the question which do I prefer? Yeah, I think so. It's not a metaphor. Yeah. You can take it out. You can take it however you wish. Well, Caesar prefers onion rings and Gollum prefers French fries. You have to make some differentiation between the characters.

And what does Andy prefer? I'd probably go with the French fry, actually. Okay, I'm not offering, just so you know. We don't have a cook and outback. Should I try a few more? Hopefully they're as substantial as that one. James Lipton doesn't ask this. Favorite cartoon character?

Okay, wow. I really like the central character in Up. Heartbreaking film, beautiful film. Yeah, I wish I could remember his name. Carl, I think. Carl, right? It's the most amazing, and one of the most amazingly touching films I've ever seen,

let alone animation. It's just, you know, I adore that. If you don't cry during that, that sequence towards the beginning of the film, of that relationship, but you have no soul. It's the greatest piece of storytelling. It really is. I adore that.

Amazing. Let's keep going, shall I? You're making a mess, Andy. Come on. I have to clean that up. Karaoke. Question mark. That's not, I'm not inviting you, but I'm curious.

Do you want me to sing a karaoke song as Gollum, showing me? I'm not making you, but if you are so inspired... The hand is there. Next. Did you guys ever go out karaoke in during no shooting? No. That'll be a fun bunch from the karaoke. I wish I could.

change this about my body. Well, actually, thanks to performance capture, I get to do it all the time. So, you know, if you're having a day you want to lose five, regain five pounds. Yeah. Pretty easy. It's the future. Is it easier to, like, is it a greater challenge to play something that is, like a Kong that is obviously, you know, five times, ten times your size than Caesar, who's approximately

at least your size? Is it easier or harder? Yeah. No, it's a lot more technically difficult pulling off. Kong because you know because of the scale thing and because in fact what we had to do is we had to build platforms which were knee height so that my fists or Kong's knuckles could rest on on those if you imagine a sort of run of benches which are a kind of knee height my feet would make contact with the floor so you get the real

physics of me here in the floor but there was we shortened Kong's legs you know in the in the puppet right to come to where my knees were basically so So it was a very, yeah, that was a very complex case. So you didn't consider gaining like 300 pounds and having your body stretched out for the roll? I didn't put on any weight because I wore a bunch of weight. I mean, I wore a ton of weights. If anything, you want to be as mean as possible, I would think. All right, let's finish from one or two more.

I promise to let you go then. Okay, there you go. Favorite book? Oh, okay. Okay, my favorite book is, wow. That's hard. I really like, oh wow, this is so difficult. I actually really like Patrick Suskin's book, Perfume.

I think that's an incredible book. Oh, interesting. I've actually directed a play of his called The Double Bass, and I've always wanted to direct Patrick Suskin's perfume as a stage piece. Oh, fascinating. Like as a piece of site-specific theatre, I think it would be pretty incredible. Are you getting that itch to go back to the theatre? Has it been a while?

It has been 12 years since I've been on stage. Occasionally really, really think, oh, I've got to do it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's, yeah, I love that book. A long to-do list. Okay. What movie do you know by heart?

I'm, you know, a big apocalypse now fan. That's pretty dark. It's pretty dark, but I do love it. I don't say I know it by heart. I don't know any movie by heart, because my memory is shocking. But I, you know, I can visualize it. Right. I was going to ask you to do Brando towards the end, one of his,

I ate a bug. And that's the other thing. I'm not very good at coming up with quotes. It's like lines when I'm learning lines for a part I'm playing. I immediately forget them as soon as they don't need them anymore. So I'm always full of admiration for people who can remember quotes and things like that. And I'm not that person. But thanks to devoted fans, they're repeated back to you.

They must find that to be the case sometimes where there's some lines you don't even recognize at first and you're, oh, I said that, okay. I'll take your word for it. No, that's right. Yeah, they're going to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll go, what are you talking about? Which one was that again? Was I good in it?

I trust that I was. But no, I do that film. I saw in Paris in 1979, I think it came out, in 70mm in a cinema in Paris. I was like, this is filmmaking. Koblo is and was and always will be a genius. Fascinating. Let's end there.

It's been a real pleasure to talk to you these last couple of days. We did an event last night, and I'm thrilled to get a chance to talk to you at length again today about a truly one of the best performances of the year, and I know, and I hope that we're going to be talking about a long-to-a-award season, we'll see. Thank you. Good to see you.

That's great, Josh. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. I appreciate it. On the infamous America podcast, you'll hear the true stories of the Salem Witch Trials and the escape attempts from Alcatraz, of bank robbers like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, of killers like Lizzie Borden and Charles Starkweather, of mysteries like the Black Dahlia and D.B. Cooper. And of events that inspired movies like Goodfellas,

killers of the flower moon, Zodiac, Eight Men Out, and many more. I'm Chris Wimmer. Join me as we crisscrossed the country from the Miami Drug Wars and Dixie Mafia in the South, to mobsters in Chicago and New York, to arsonists, kidnappers, and killers in California, to unsolved mysteries in the heartland and in remote corners of Alaska. Every episode features narrative writing and cinematic music, and there are hundreds of episodes available to binge. Find Infamous America, wherever you get your podcasts.