Andy Serkis

For decades actor and director Andy Serkis has been at the cutting edge of how the movements and expressions of the human body can merge with animation to create creatures of myth and the imagination, from ''King Kong'' and Caesar from ''Planet of the Apes'' to Tolkien’s Gollum in ''The Lord of the Rings.''

He talks to Akram about his early days acting in theatre repertory where he learned how physicality connects with the body’s emotional center and about the intricate technique of performance capture - the egalitarian 21st-century actor's tool where any actor can play anything.

He also discusses the freedoms that great movie directors like Peter Jackson and Mike Leigh have given him as an actor, and remembers his first experiences directing films himself.