Gollum Mo-Cap More Advanced in 'The Hobbit'

Bagginses?

What is a Bagginses?

[Voiceover] Gollum's a dark character.

Precious.

You know, he is a very complicated schizophrenic.

Oh, we knows!

We knows safe paths for Hobbitses.

Safe paths in the dark.

Shut up!

Gollum is an addict, basically,

and that was how I originally found my

way into the role,

that he was completely craven and lustful

and powerless in the thrall of this

very, very, very potent drug that possesses him.

To have to kind of own him again

and to get inside of him was quite strange,

and it took me by surprise.

If Baggins loses, we eats it whole.

So the very first day of principal photography

was the seminal scene between

Gollum and Bilbo Baggins.

It was also Martin Freeman's first day

as Bilbo Baggins.

Why don't we have a game of riddles?

It was very focused and intense kind of scene

to kick off with.

We played the whole thing out from some,

from beginning to end.

It's like a 13-minute scene.

We did it again and again and again

for two weeks.

And it really gave us a chance to find our feet

and to enter and to experiment with it

and to come up with lots of different ideas

and so on.

It was a really, really fantastic way of working.

And if he loses, what then?

What if he loses Precious then we eats it?

Technologically the whole world

of performance capture has moved on.

Now we can shoot on live-action sets at the same time.

There's no disconnect,

whereas on Lord of the Rings,

I played out all the scenes with Elijah

and with Sean Astin but then I had to go

and shoot them again on the motion capture

stage set.

It's still in its infancy in terms of

where it's gonna go and the ability

that it gives an actor to transform

whilst retaining a real, emotional

sort of truth.

So no matter how big or wacky or abstract

or the design of a character,

it still is always rooted in this emotional,

truthful actor's performance.

[Voiceover] You'll have a tale or two to tell

when you come back.

(men groaning in pain)

[Male] You've got to be joking!