Should Andy Serkis be nominated for an Oscar?

dark crystal

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Fox pans to campaign for Andy Serkis to receive a Best Supporting Actor nomination for this year's Oscars.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/fox-push-dawn-planet-apes-743984

This move has divided Hollywood, some of whom feel it may be a slippery slope to making actors somewhat superfluous on film.

Jeff Bridges says "Actors will kind of be a thing of the past,
We'll be turned into combinations. A director will be able to say: 'I want 60 per cent Clooney; give me 10 per cent Bridges and throw some Charles Bronson in there"

Personally, I'm pretty old-fashioned. I like watching 'real' actors on the big screen doing their thing and think CGI has become far too commonplace in films nowadays, replacing the magic of traditional movie making. There's no mystique to some films any more, when you're acutely aware that that spectacular scene you're watching was actually done on a separate soundstage with computer trickery.

I know Serkis is a huge fan of the technology and describes himself as 'evangelical' about it, going so far as to open his own motion capture company, but I do think it's all slightly 'cheaty'. I realise I'll probably be ripped a new one for that opinion, but it's how I genuinely feel!

Not taking away from Andy's performance, I'm just not sure rewarding such computer generated performances bode well for the future of film. Or am I just being incredibly churlish?

Mickeroo

I think he deserves it, motion-capture is different to straight up voice acting imo. He should have been nominated for The Two Towers years ago. The actual acting is all him.

Considering he was very much the lead in the film I guess they don't fancy their chances of getting him a best actor nod, the guy who played Koba deserves some recognition too.

I don't think it will happen this time but I'm sure sometime in the future someone will be nominated for a motion capture performance.

e_e

Wouldn't take issue with it, he gave the last Apes movie the heart and heft it really needed.

megaten

Dunno, motion capture often ends up just being a guide for traditional animators. I heard that an awful lot of his stuff for the lord of the rings had to be thrown out and animated by hand.

humanji

If John Hurt can be nominated for The Elephant Man, then I don't see why Serkis can't be for a motion captured performance. Technology simply replaced one form of makeup for another.

Brandon F

Jeff Bridges of Tron Legacy? I haven't seen this movie but Serkis' previous work in motion capture is certainly worthy of being considered at least.

Gatling

He should have been reconised years ago for his work

Bipolar Joe

If anything, his voice acting alone is worth mounds of recognition.

tenifan

I liked Gollum. I liked Caesar in Rise but not Dawn, where he just hunched over and had a glum look on his face the entire movie. I did not rate any of the performances in Dawn of the planet of the apes. The CGI took over. It's something more suited to the special effects category.

Sad Professor

No. He deserves an honorary Oscar for his work over the last decade and a half, and a share in any wins for visual effects. But to be included with the real actors, absolutely not. What he does is not the same thing as what Daniel Day Lewis/whoever does - no matter how close the animators stick to his performance. It’s plays computer generated characters. His performance is the template and the animators will depart from it or abandon it entirely if instructed to do so by the director.