Andy Serkis played Gollum in Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories.
Serkis portrayed Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and reprised the role in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The character was created through a combination of Serkis’s performance, digital animation, and visual-effects work rather than conventional live-action makeup alone.
His performance helped popularize motion-capture acting for major dramatic roles. Serkis supplied Gollum’s voice, movements, and emotional interpretation, while digital artists translated that work into the final creature seen on screen.
Gollum’s film appearance is based on Tolkien’s character Sméagol, a former river-folk hobbit-like being corrupted by the One Ring. The films show his divided personality through the names Sméagol and Gollum, a distinction that is also central to the books.