It's fantastic. I only went out for two weeks this time, but I've been working on the movie for seven to eight months in total. At the beginning, I wasn't quite sure how much I would actually be doing, and how much would be key-framed or rotoscoped or whatever. It turned out to be a blend of different techniques.

So how much of Gollum is you and how much is CG?

Every single movement of the character is pretty much me. All of Gollum's scens are shot twice, one with me in the shot as a reference, and one with me out of shot. It's going to be one of the most highly intergrated digital characters on screen ever. The degree of work that's gone into it is amazing.

As well as capturing you moving about, how else are they getting your performance into the character?

Well, we're running tests on the facial motion-capture techniques now, so the CG Gollum will look much like me. Also, in the Gollum backstory, you see me in the flesh and in prosthetics, so I go through the whole spectrum. I think I've been through more processes than any other actor on these films!

And how does a typical day shape up for Gollum?

Well, I've been doing about four hours of ADR (voice-over looping) and about eight hours of motion capture every day, and then the animators take over. The process is amazing. This time, for the first time, I saw my voice synced up to the actual animation-just a few frames, a couple of words...But it was really exciting after two years to finally see what Gollum's gonna look like.

Copyright to Total Film 2002