Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic is a memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

 written by actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 Andy Serkis

Andy Serkis

Andrew Clement G. "Andy" Serkis is an English actor, director and author. He is popularly known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he earned several award nominations, including the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Two Towers...

 about his adventures playing Gollum

Gollum

Gollum is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He was introduced in the author's fantasy novel The Hobbit, and became an important supporting character in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings....

 in New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...

's Lord of the Rings film trilogy

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...

. It was released to coincide with the theatrical release of The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 epic fantasy-drama film directed by Peter Jackson that is based on the second and third volumes of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings...

.

Plot

Gollum details how a three-week commission for Andy Serkis to provide a voiceover for Gollum grew into a five-year commitment to breathe life and soul into The Lord of the Rings most challenging creation. Andy Serkis tackles various subjects throughout the book, including character conception (Gollum's "cough" is derived from his cat coughing up a hairball) as well as the hard work it took to act out Gollum and replace it with CGI. He also discusses the controversy of whether he should have been eligible for an Academy Award for his work as Gollum.