Andy Serkis (Gollum) “really enjoyed” The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies, watched The Rings of Power on Amazon. What did he think?

The Lord of the Rings is back in business. New Line Cinema is producing a new animated movie, Amazon spent a mint on The Rings of Power, and Andy Serkis — who played Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy — is recording a new audiobook version of The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien’s book about the early days of Middle-earth.

Serkis, whose performance as Gollum broke new ground when it came to real actors playing CGI characters, is keeping up with all of it. He watched the new Amazon show, and told Collider that he liked what he saw. “Yeah, I absolutely watched it, and it really – once you get through understanding the rules of it, and actually how loyal to the trilogy and the feel of the trilogy music by Howard Shore for the opening sequence, et cetera – I found it incredibly engaging, and I really, really enjoyed watching it,” he said.

"And also, because I’d done an audiobook recording of The Lord of the Rings, and read the appendices, and had to read them out loud, I was quite clued up about where it was going to go, which was great, and it was really helpful because I’m going to be – don’t tell anybody – reading The Silmarillion, as well. So you heard this first. Yeah, no, so I really enjoyed it very much so."

The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the main events of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien writes most extensively about this period in the appendices to LOTR and in The Silmarillion.

That said, even if Serkis felt he had a handle on where things were going to go, the show ruffled the feathers of some LOTR fans by breaking with established canon. It definitely found an audience, though, and will be returning for a second season. (And probably more beyond that.)

We don’t know when, though, nor do we know when Serkis’ audiobook version of The Silmarillion will be coming out. But these days, we’ll probably never have to wait long before getting to take another trip back to Middle-earth.

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