First Look of Andy Serkis as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Andy Serkis is world renowned for pioneering Motion Capture technology with his portrayal of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he went on to star as King Kong in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake and is set to reprise his role of Gollum in the hotly anticipated The Hobbit prequel films.

Last night WETA Digital unveiled for the first time the character that Serkis will be seen as in this summers The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. True to form, Serkis will play the Motion Capture role of the highly intelligent ape Caesar in the prequel that will see Your Highness hunk James Franco star alongside Slumdog Millionnaire sweetheart Freida Pinto.

"The main thing we're trying to do is create these completely believable ape characters and treat them completely in a live-action sense, this actually grew most directly out of what we were doing on Avatar, but here we brought the motion capture completely onto the live-action stage. We had to hide all of the motion-capture cameras all over the live-action sets. And so we could have Andy Serkis, and any of the other actors playing the apes in the set with the [non-ape] actors actually performing." explains senior visual effects supervisor Joe Leterri of WETA Digital.

Serkis added "Kong was purely a gorilla, so I went all-out to to make that work and play the psychology and DNA of a pure gorilla, but this is much more mercurial and 'shifting sands' in terms of who this creature is, because he's brought up with human beings, and then he's inherited this drug which has enhanced his intelligence, so you have to almost forget he's a chimp, really. We've been experimenting with treating him much more as a human being, really. It feels more like a human drama story."

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is directed by Rupert Wyatt and stars an all star cast including John Lithgow, Brian Cox, David Hewlett and Harry Potter bad boy Tom Felton. Apes will rise in cinemas on August 18.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Gallery

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES HITS CINEMAS ON AUGUST 18