B.L. Your work is absolutely fantastic in The Two Towers, and even though we don’t really see "you" I have to think that this must have been the toughest role of your career.
A.S. Well, he’s an extreme character certainly, and in terms of an acting challenge these kinds of roles don’t come along very often and they are like gold dust. They are why you became an actor really. So, in many ways they are easier because there is so much there. Tolkien of course gives a lot in his descriptions and the script writing was fantastic and Peter Jackson’s (director) take on how he wanted to do it was very clear. It was very challenging. Not only did I have to involve myself in how I was going to portray this character psychologically, physically and vocally but how I was going to marry that with the manifestation on screen. It was a huge challenge, to answer your question.

B.L. You must have had a huge responsibility to fans of the film and the books, was that always in the back of your mind because Gollum is such an integral part of the second and third films. Did that play into how you were going to play him?
A.S. I tried not to be fazed by it but I realized that a lot of people’s favorite character in the books is Gollum because he’s so flawed. He is such a major point of contact for the audience I suppose what I wanted to do was find that point of connection so that he’s kind of like an every man character. The dark and the light side of him reflect the dark and light sides of all of us and therefore make him sympathetic as well. I didn’t want him to be just an evil, snivelling wretch that nobody felt sorry for or could relate to. I had an angle on it, but as I said, Tolkien gives so much and kind of lovingly describes his way of speaking and way of moving and so on. There’s a lot to go on, so that’s why I think he’s such a memorable character.

B.L I am sure you have been asked about Gollum’s voice. How did you come up with it?
A.S. It was rooted psychologically through trying to find where Gollum’s pain was trapped. I thought that his pain was trapped in his throat, that’s why he is called Gollum because of the way he sounds. On a physical level I actually based it on my cats at home. You know when cats get fur balls their whole bodies convulse and they spew up these fur balls. That’s where the involuntary action for me was rooted so that’s how it started.

B.L. Do you have people coming up to you all the time asking you to do the voice?
A.S. I am constantly being asked to record for people’s answering phone messages, parties and kid’s parties and I operate on cheap suburban rates.

B.L. You have a family with two young kids, what was it like to pick everyone up and move to New Zealand for close to two years?
A.S. They came for principal photography because we of course shot all three films together. They came down for a large chunk of that which was great. They were very young then, Ruby was two and she’s now four and Sonny was born during the filming and he’s now two and a half. They’ve been part of the journey as well.

B.L. What was your first reaction after you had done all of this incredible behind-the-scenes work and then you finally saw what Gollum looked like up on screen?
A.S. Because I had been part of the process all the way along the line I’d see him develop kind of inch by inch through shooting on set originally. Through the motion capture phase and then working with all of the animators who have done an absolutely incredible job of manifesting him onto the screen. I feel like I know every single frame of his journey. What was a thrill was seeing it in front of an audience and seeing how they responded to him. I think the success of the character is that you forget that he is a CG (computer generated) character. You are really drawn in by him and you can feel the audience literally warm up to him and feel sorry for him. So that was the thrill for me, that it worked and all of our work paid off.

B.L. I think that you had the hardest job of anybody on this set. You had to shoot your scenes twice from different angles plus it was very physically demanding. There is a lot of buzz that you could get an Oscar nomination and I hope you do. How does something like that make you feel?
A.S. It would be incredible. I’m just really delighted that the acting part of it is being acknowledged because basically what you see up on screen is this creature and it’s sometimes hard for people to understand exactly what the acting process is going to be. So the fact that people are generously acknowledging what I have done has been thrilling for me. Hey, if it comes up in an award then great. There’s been a lot of controversy about how much the animation is responsible for who Gollum is and how much the acting is and I think it’s an interesting debate.

B.L. So very quickly, what is in store for Gollum in The Return of the King, the third installment? We do know that he will have a very large role in it.
A.S. (using Gollum’s voice) Oh…It’s a secret, precious! (laughs)