Gollum's meatspace counterpart does PS3 title
After groundbreaking roles playing digital counterparts Gollum and King Kong in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and King Kong respectively, Andy Serkis, the world's most famous motion capture-actor, is giving video games a shot.
He'll be playing the role of the villainous King Botan in Ninja Theory's upcoming PS3 action title, Heavenly Sword.
The BBC is running a short piece, with some gee-whiz tech jargon thrown in to wow the unwashed masses ("one of the processors inside the machine is solely devoted to recreating the movement of clothes and hair") as well as some interesting details on Serkis' specific involvement, noting that he's "taking care of all the performance capture, the casting and is heavily involved in writing."
Hollywood involvement in games is nothing new (remember Bruce Willis in Apocalypse?) but Serkis is the Marlon Brando of motion capture and, as such, might be able to bring some real talent into the acting backwater that is video games. Then there's the whole question of whether or not that belongs in video games ...
See also:
PS3 Impressions: Heavenly Sword
Major PS3 titles missing launch date
[Thanks, ben]
