Following decades working in the entertainment industry, Andy Serkis has become best known for his roles on the big screen rather than in games. However, he was at the forefront of motion capture long before his record-breaking role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Working closely alongside Ninja Theory on the PS3 classic Heavenly Sword as an actor, writer, and director, it wasn’t a childhood passion for the interactive medium that drew him to it.
“I wouldn’t have called myself a gamer at all,” Serkis tells us. “But I was always very interested in next generation storytelling. Around 2004, when we made Heavenly Sword, I started our performance capture studio with a view to create immersive stories outside of traditional 2D experiences, like cinema or television.”
Serkis still believes that video games are at the forefront of storytelling, which is what attracted him to take on the role of Renoir in the upcoming turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. While he’s not performing the motion capture for this role, it still fits in with his vision from those early days. “When we started our company, we were thinking about how we would tell stories in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time.” Serkis explains.
Hype around the game has been building, and you can find news about its release in the mainstream media. However, when Serkis began his career, this was very much not the case. “There used to be a terrible snobbery from the film industry with [video games] being the lesser cousin,” Serkis says. “That they didn’t really tell stories, it was just about the gameplay, hack ‘n’ slash, and killing people. [People in the film industry thought] it was not an art form in any stretch, and gradually it’s taken over the film industry, which could not exist without it.”
Serkis explains that this point of view has been proven wrong, and that acting in video games now receives the level of prestige it’s always deserved. “It’s come of age,” he explains.“There are actors coming out of drama schools who want to be in video games and see it as another part of the palate of what it is to be a performer.”
Serkis’ role as Renoir in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is still shrouded in mystery, despite the dozens of trailers that have been released. When we asked him about the role, he simply said, “Be prepared to not prejudge.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on Thursday, April 24, 2025.
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