Today's Birthday, April 20: Andy Serkis, British actor (1964-)
Andy Serkis is the man behind greedy Gollum hoarding his "precious" ring in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Born Andrew Clement Serkis in London on April 20, 1964, Serkis had fairly limited success before he was cast as Gollum, a role that involved motion capture acting.
Serkis decided to pursue an acting career after becoming heavily involved with his university's theatre studies department, and performing in a production of Barrie Keeffe's play Gotcha.
He played in theatres across northern England for the first few years of his career, learning and refining his craft, and began to make his mark on the London stage in the 1990s.
At this time Serkis's film and television career was also starting to take flight.
But it wasn't until his breakthrough role as Gollum, in Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy, that he hit the big time.
His character was so popular there was an uproar that he was ineligible for a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Academy Awards because his character onscreen was computer-generated.
And the same questions were asked when Serkis impressed with the movements he provided for the title character in Jackson's next project, King Kong, in which he also appeared as Lumpy the cook.
He returned as Gollum in 2012's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and is due to appear as Caesar in the Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes later this year. AAP ri/tab
