Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bolzai. I'm Jesse Thorne.

I'm just going to get this out of the way.

Andy Circus is good at so many different things that honestly it makes me mad.

Not like big mad, but I'm not like honking my horn all the time or throwing my hat on the floor and stomping it. It's just annoying how good he is. First, there's motion capture, which is, you know, the act of

using human performances to animate CGI characters, you know, black stretchy suits and little

ping pong balls and everything. I guess they don't actually use those anymore.

Circus's 2001 portrayal of Gollum in Lord of the Rings revolutionized that practice.

Circus became the uncontested king of mocap.

He continued to use it in dozens of other projects,

King Kong, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars. But if you take

off the mocap suit and all the ping pong balls, what do you get? Well, you get Andy Circus,

genius, real-life actor. He spent in blockbuster films like Black Panther, critically acclaimed

TV shows like Andor, and he was even nominated for a BAFTA Award for his portrayal of

rocker Ian Drury in the biopic, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And behind the camera?

Well, he was a second unit director for the entire Hobbit trilogy. He also just directed his

fourth feature film, an animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which is in theaters now.

How many people can do that many things?

I'm good at this, and I...

I don't even know. I'm trying to think of a second thing.

I might never be good at this.

Anyway, whatever the other thing is that I'm good at,

...