Do Hollywood Actors Fear the Rise of Avatar-Based Acting?

The Academy Award nominees for last year's movies were just announced, and one prominent actor's name wasn't included among them, even though he was featured to universal acclaim in one of 2011's biggest movies. I mean, of course, Andy Serkis, who played the chimpanzee named Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes through the technology of motion capture:

His performance as Caesar was vivid, nuanced, heart-wrenching. And as I wrote when Rise opened, Serkis is basically our first avatar-based movie star, renowned for the 3D digital characters he plays, though few who enjoy his performances in theaters know who he is, and still fewer (beyond dedicated geek cineastes) could identify him in real life, were they to pass him on the street. Despite the acclaim for his Apes performance, which won him a nomination by the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, and despite a a lobbying effort for an Oscar nomination by the movie's studio, 20th Century Fox, which ran a "For Your Consideration" ad in trade journals for Serkis as Caesar with the headline “The Time is Now," Serkis got no nomination.

Here's where it gets interesting to me: The Academy Award nominations are made by filmmakers in their respective category. Directors nominate directors, screenwriters nominate screenwriters... and actors nominate actors. So Serkis was specifically snubbed by fellow actors. This despite his popular co-star in Apes, James Franco, lobbying for Serkis' motion-captured performance:

“What is needed is recognition for him, now," wrote Franco in an online appeal for Serkis, "Not later when this kind of acting is de rigueur, but now, when he has elevated this fresh mode of acting into an art form. And it is time for actors to give credit to other actors.” But unlike Franco, not enough actors stepped up for Serkis.

Of course, it's quite possible Serkis received a lot of votes from fellow actors, but just not enough to make the nomination pool, and this we'll never know. Though it's kind of strange that Kenneth Branagh, Nick Nolte, and Christopher Plummer got nods for little-seen movies My Week with Marilyn, Warrior, and Beginners, respectively. Then again, these actors are well-established, while the overall status of avatar-based acting still isn't fully understood, recognized, or even respected. Not entirely surprising. After all, when the era of silent movies was reaching an end, actors from that era scoffed at the work of up-and-coming actors famous for their vocal performance. (See Sunset Boulevard.) And from that perspective, at least some of the Serkis snub probably comes from actors who fear a future that may not benefit the well-known performers of today. And who fear the rise of avatar-based actors.

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[shockwave yareach]

As the movie "Tron: Legacy" has shown us, the tech is no to a level where that little thing called Death is no longer the end of that person's movies. We'll be able to have the classic Tom Cruise face acting in ways he'd never be capable long after he and his thetans are worm food.

The thing actors need to fear is that soon, any studio will be able to use anyone's likeness and not have to pay the actor anything. That's when the lawsuits will fly. I could today make a brand new movie with Humprey Bogart. He can't do anything about it -- he's dead. His descendants may demand money, but I can demand the moon turn to pixie dust too. Who exactly owns all these dead actors' faces -- the actors, their descendants, or the studios who paid for those faces half a century ago?

Imagine a future where Richard Pryor and Marilyn Monroe star in a modern retelling of "Guess who's coming to Dinner?" and the studios won't have to pay a single actor one thin dime?

[Pussycat Catnap]

Its all about Face-time.

The same comments said here could be said about Jennifer Hale.

More people today probably know her work than know that of Clint Eastwood. But most probably couldn't name her, or put her work between projects together even if shown them side by side.

Serkis is invisible because of his avatar, and Hale is invisible because despite being in almost -everything- put out for video games, you only hear her voice.

Actors fear this.

They fear that become an invisible actor would rob them of face time.

Watch any hostage movie, and invariably the bad guys take off their masks. This is done so those poor actors can get hired for more jobs in future. Don't see their face; they and casting directors think 'anybody could be in that chimp-suit.'

There's no recognition for the skill, only for the face...

This is patently obvious to anyone who watches year after year of horrible blockbusters featuring big name actors who can't act and so end up playing the same basic character year after year. And here I'm speaking of the -ENTIRE- A-list of actors. I don't think there's a single one of them that actually deserves the title 'actor.'

Want to see a real actor, look at the bit parts, or in independent films where you don't know the faces... so they have to play a character...

By the time you 'make it', you're selling your face, and your acting skills from then on atrophy into non-existence.

A guy like Serkis though, all he's got going for him is pure talent. And that scares the heck out of the brand-name actors.

He's a 100-ton threat coming their way, if they let his kind of work get recognition.

[Joey1058]

I just got an eerie feeling of nymwars deja vu. It took the actors guilds years to force talent recognition onto the studios. And now that very concept is being recinded by their own kind?

The big studios like WB, MGM, and Universal all had contract actors. You showed up, they assigned you a bit part in the background, and you got a paycheck at the end of the month. What's to keep them from going into their archives, dusting off a few B flicks, picking somebody that was a nobody, and making that person an instant star?

The guilds really need to stand together on this. Or classic film acting is finished. Acknowledge everyone, or wind up acknowledging the next guy they pull off the streets of LA that made a halfway decent machinima.

[SarahAndrea Royce]

> And here I'm speaking of the -ENTIRE- A-list of actors.

It was quite interesting to see Face-Off because in that movie the actors had to play each other. Real acting was required. Travolta failed, but Cage really made some points that you could recognize the typical Travolta facial expressions. Yet when you compare the two careers, Travolta became famous for his dancing while Cage always was an actor.

But its true, most astonishing acts are made buy nonprominent actors. I renember a crimiseries, where an actress played a split personality and changed on screen. Visibly she only loosend one button and rearranged her her, but I would have recognized the second personality as the same person without having seen the transformation sequence.

Andy Serkis is one hell of an actor, yet he wouldn't be hollywood material because of his looks. I like the idea that talent will be more important than (RL-)looks.

[foneco zuzu]

Real actors don't have to fear, just do theater!
Is still the noble act, Cinema is just an extension of that!
And any that judges and evaluates the talent by the fact that they are in or out of the Oscar ceremony, well enough said....

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Along my crazy jumbled career path, I have been an actor - not Hollywood grade, not by a long shot, but I took home a paycheck (sometimes).

People have really weird notions about actors. But actors are just normal human beings with the unusual job of pretending to be somebody else. Apart from that, they have the same range of personalities and behaviors as any other people.

Working film actors who aren't stars may have more to fear from CGI. As the technology advances, extras and bit parts may be generated rather than cast.

But unless we have a couple of quantum leaps in natural language, facial and body language synthesis, they will still need actors for the forseeable future. And honestly, sitting at a mic or wearing a mocap rig beats the hell out of suffering through wardrobe and makeup for hours.

Serkis turned in a powerful performance as Caesar, but I think the primary factor working against him was that it was essentially a non-speaking part. That doesn't lessen the achievement, but it does make it a hard sell to the members of the Academy.

Oh, and the reason that masked characters are frequently unmasked on the big screen has little to do with the actor's ego. It's usually the director's choice, because the face is one of an actor's most powerful tools.

[HALEY Salamon]

HOLLYWOOD is a business,, it is mine and has nothing to do with art , but the ones that vote most let the kids ,,,or who ever is in the room vote 4 them ,,, care , and trust me he was NOT THAT GOOD !! sorry , Avatar and acting is not the same thing ! a few of us still care about the art ,, even if it is kind of hopeless!!

[Emperor Norton]

So what's the big deal? Sure the motion capture is a marvel of technology but end of the day it's a man in a monkey suite, just the monkey suit is in a computer.

[Emperor Norton]

shockwave yareach; ask Steve Martian about well "Dead Man Don't Were Plaid" did if you think they can just clip art the dead back to life.

[shockwave yareach]

@Emperor - you really think a movie from 30 years ago is a good example of what we can do today? Back then, all they could do was splice in entire scenes with the actor in it. Today, you can take a number of frames of the actor from different angles and create a mesh of the actor's face. With that mesh, you can make him do anything or say anything you want, in living color, in a pink tutu while standing on a tightrope across skyscrapers in New York.

"I'm the digital ghost of Abraham Lincoln, and I approve this message."