#the Cavendish family also has so much family drama in it in my head

[ace-the-fox]

Me: Already has a wizard oc for Andrew's other parent

Also me: Omg wait what if Daryl Cavendish was his mom–

[itzleon345]

We’re a Million Worlds Apart

Chapter 1: If I Could Just Tell Her

Fandom: Little Witch Academia

Pairing: Diana Cavendish/ Atsuko “Akko” Kagari

Read it on AO3: Here

Rating: T

Word count: 1974 words

Summary: Akko is hopelessly in love with Diana but she is to much of a coward to confess so she just keeps her feelings in her inside fantasizing how would it be if she had the guts to tell her how she feels.

Look at your beautiful blue eyes, deep as the same sea, lose myself in them like a sailor without a compass to guided him, believe that I could never leave that abyss without an end, and then, observe your smile which has no comparison, your sort of subtle and perfect and real smile that you only trust to some of us, I can't believe you don't know how that same smile can make me feel, ecstatic, happy, I could even say that overburdened, but well, in the end I know that this is all for the simple fact that I'm hopelessly in love with you, Diana Cavendish

You make me happier day by day, you make me want to discover more things about you, as, for example, whenever you get bored you scribbled stars in your notes, stars that resemble those that some months ago you and I released

And I also notice that although you seem completely disinterested in such childish topics, you still fill out the quizzes that they put in those teen magazines that Hannah and Barbara leave in the library 

I know all of this because lately you are the only thought in my head, I know this because I love to know things about you, because I adore every part of you, because I treasure every moment by your side and for that same reason i keep it all inside my head and you don't know anything about this, I have to leave this unsaid, because even if I want to do it, I can't even get close to you, I can't find a way.

But I swear to you that every night when I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up the only thing I can think of is ‘if I could tell her? Tell her all the things I see, if I could tell her? Tell her that she is everything to me’ and I know I will not because we’re a million worlds apart, because you are a queen and I am a jester, and anyway, even if I could tell you I would not know where to start because there is too much to say, Because day after day I discover something new about you, I really don't know what to do, so the only thing I have left is to fantasize about 'if I could tell her?'

Akko was writing all of this on a loose sheet as soon as she woke up

"Akko! Hurry up, it's time to start classes” Lotte hurried from the closet while she finished putting on her vest.

"Please be considerate to us, I don't wish to have to clean the Trolls' toilet a second time this month," Sucy said already ready from her side of the desk as she finished mixing a couple of liquids.

"Yep! I'm going!" The brunette answered as she put the letter in one of the desk drawers

——————————————————

"Well girls, I hope you have paid attention to the class as this topic will come in next week's exam, now go" said Finnelan with force in her voice

Akko closed her notebook with a sigh, notebook that had no notes as the whole class she had spent thinking about her most recent dilemma ‘maybe one day I will be able to tell her how I feel.’

Her morning classes were already over and it was lunchtime -her favorite time-, she and her teammates shot out to the dining room where, as always, the green and blue teams were already sitting, for some reason or another they were talking about the Night Fall convention that Lotte and Barbara had managed to drag them down a couple of weeks ago.

"Hey Princess" Amanda tried to get the attention of the blonde who seemed that didn’t paid attention to the previous conversation because she was waiting for someone to arrive "do you want to know what Akko told me about you a couple of days ago?" Diana instantly turned to see the American with a look of interest.

"Is that a yes?" The redhead asked a second time with a small smile to which Diana just nodded.

Akko -who had just arrived- was nervous as much as she could be, because even if she tried to keep her feelings for the heiress on the sidelines, she knew that -somehow- Amanda had discovered her little crush with the blonde (it should be noted that although she thought she was discreet, everyone had already knew about it, well, everyone except for Diana who was equal or more dense than Akko with all of this romance thing)

"Well, she said she loves the way you ride your broom," Amanda replied with a laugh.

"A-amanda!" Akko complained with her face completely red.

And either way, Akko wasn't the only one with a strange reaction, each of them had a different one, Sucy giggled, Lotte's cheeks were tinged with a subtle blush, Jasminka looked a little disapprovingly at her teammate, Constanze simply stood up from her place next to Jasminka to fist-bump Amanda, Hannah and Barbara glared at Amanda, and Diana? Well Diana was just extremely confused, she didn't understand why they all seemed to exaggerate at a simple compliment from her favorite brunette

"That's it? Did she say anything else? ” Asked the heiress with clear confusion and interest

"About you?" answered maliciously with another question Sucy which had been the fastest to get out of the small group shock

"No, n-never mind" Diana stuttered as she turned to look elsewhere, because it is not like she was interested in what Akko thought about her, obviously not and if it came to interest it would be for the simple fact that they were friends, nothing out of the ordinary, obvious.

"Don't worry Cav, she said so many things! But there are so much that I'm trying to remember the best ones” Amanda said with a bit of mockery “For example! She said that your hair look really pretty whe-” the redhead tried to continue but was interrupted by Akko who lunged from her place in front of her to silence her

“It look pretty...er... cool! The way your hair moves when you fly is pretty cool... hehe ”Akko finished answering from the ground with one hand in Amanda's mouth and the other scratching the back of her neck

"You did?" The blonde asked again with a small blush

"O-of course!" Akko almost yelled as she stood up and helped Amanda to stand "b-but hey, what were you guys talking about before we got here?" The brunette asked looking at her friends for help.

"Night Fall!" Barbara shouted "I-i mean, we were talking about the Night Fall convention we went, heh" Akko turned to see her with gratitude and they continued chatting about the convention and those conventions that were to come.

Lunch continued without any further altercation, just a couple of playful glances from Amanda and Sucy's two-way remarks, the normal. At the end, the group separated and each one go to their respective classes of the afternoon.

——————————————————

"Akko, I think it's about time you confessed to Diana" Lotte said out of nowhere.

The little lunch drama had happened a couple of weeks ago, weeks in which quite similar situations had occurred, which always ended with Akko shouting some nonsense or someone in the floor -except for Sucy who was too scary for Akko to try to tackle her-, and this was gradually annoying her friends, none of them could believe how Akko was such a coward not to confessed to someone who was obviously going to accept her, and how Diana was so stubborn not to accept her own infatuation that she excused as a "Very good friendship"

"W-what ?!" Akko screamed as she got up from her bunk and hit Lotte's.

"Lotte is right, it is too upsetting to see you mopping around by your supposed ‘unrequited love’” Sucy added from the desk.

"Girls you know that I can’t, she herself has shown me that she doesn’t see me as nothing more than a friend" Akko answered while rubbing the place on her head which had been hit

"Argh" Sucy growled as she listened to her stupid -but dear- friend

“Besides, how do you suppose I would do it? What the hell would I say to her? "Akko said as she stood up from her bed to start walking back and forth in their little hallway

"Perhaps you plan for me to tell her how I have always wondered how she learned to dance like if all the rest of the world isn’t there?" the tone of voice of the little witch was gradually growing

"Or how her presence makes me feel back to the stratosphere, that her smile makes me the happiest person in the world, that I don't know what I would do if she were to leave one day, because making her happy became my new dream?" She continued with her little speech as she sat back on her bed

"Is that what you plan? Because I do not see it very convenient, I don’t want to lose her, I don’t want her to abandon me because she found out that I am this freak that fell in love with her best friend, I really don’t want to, because she is everything to me” little by little her eyes began to moisten

"Besides, we’re a million worlds apart, she is literally the best witch to have stepped on Luna Nova in decades, she is the heir to one of the most powerful families of all times, while I" she laughed sadly "I am only a screw up witch who still doesn't know how to correctly fly a broom” By this moment tears were already coming out of her eyes

"What do you want me to do when there is this great divide?" She said and she started sobbing for a moment

"She always seems to be so far away," Akko continued. Sucy, meanwhile, stood up from her place to sit next to Akko, Lotte also got off her bunk while giving Sucy a sad look and sat on the other side of Akko

"What am I going to do when the distance is too wide?" Lotte hugged her teammate as a couple of tears escaped from her own eyes

"She doesn't know anything" Sucy let out with a bit of venom in her voice, because, although, she knew it wasn't on purpose, she was extremely bothered by all the pain the Cavendish heiress caused to her friend.

"And how would l look to her face and s-say" Akko stuttered while she released from Lotte's embrace and got up again, this time going to her desk and began in a whisper to repeat the same sentence

"I love you" she said as she took out the letter she had written a couple of weeks ago

"I love you" she opened the window

"I love you!" She screamed at the top of her lungs at the cold night outside of her room

"I love you" she said for the last time with her eyes closed and a tender smile as she hugged herself and the letter, but when she opened her eyes she returned to reality and likewise she took the letter and threw it out of the window and close it, and then return to the embrace of her friends -Yes, Sucy included-

"But we are a million worlds apart, and I don’t know how I would even start telling her anyway," she said spitefully.

"If I could just tell her" she whispered as she lay down on her bed together with her friends.

"If I could ..." she closed her eyes and slept so she could dream what her world would be like if she weren't a complete coward

[recentanimenews]

Little Witch Academia – 19

In a move that initially feels like she’s been underutilized in the show thus far, Diana makes the decision to drop out of Luna Nova Academy, effective immediately. The Cavendish family is in dire straits, she is the only one who can right the ship, and the window to assume the mantle of family leadership is closing, and won’t open again until the stars literally align years from now.

In true form, Akko either rejects whatever reasons Diana has or doesn’t bother to ask what they are: she’s only concerned with whether this is really what Diana wants. It’s clear Diana isn’t happy about leaving. But pride in her once-great family, and love and obligation to fulfill her now-deceased mother’s wishes outweighs her desire to stay in school.

Akko doesn’t make Diana’s departure any easier, so she throws Akko’s own main goal—the Words, and her inability to find them as quickly as she claimed she would—back in her face. There’s a nice meta nature to this: Akko has futzed around with Amanda and Cons but has yet to find the fifth, “history and tradition”-related Word.

There’s also the fact that Diana always thought she would be the one entrusted to the task of unsealing the words and opening the gate. But she ruefully accepts that Akko is the “chosen one”, and not her.

When Diana arrives at a huge but increasingly deteriorating Cavendish estate, we’re officially in Magic Falling Aristocrat Land, complete with Diana’s drunk aunt, Daryl. She and Diana exchange hollow pleasantries, barely bothering to hide their mutual disdain.

The sense is immediate that not only would Diana not have to deal with the collapse of her family before she finishes school, but that Daryl, the proxy head, has no desire whatsoever for Diana to come in and start mucking about the lifestyle she and her daughters cling to: sucking up what’s left of the Cavendish fortune and grinding its name into dust.

Naturally, Akko isn’t taking Diana’s goodbye lying down, and she’s clearly unconsciously drawn by the possibility the fifth word will lie in her interactions with Diana and her family. But whether it’s too slow, out of magical range, or the writers simply forgot, she doesn’t take the broom Cons made for her last week.

When she’s had her fill of travelling by foot, she thumbs a lift, and is reluctantly picked up by none other than Andrew and his father, who happen to be on their way to the Cavendish Manor. An initially tense, awkward backseat scene is lightened when Andrew refutes his father’s claim Akko “ruined” his party, while Akko tells Andrew the reason for their “fated” encounter: she’s going to bring Diana back.

Akko’s arrival with Andrew and his father certainly surprises Diana (Andrew’s line about finding her by the side of the road is at once cruel, hilarious, and true), but in this nest of vipers, it’s Diana who does what she can to keep Akko safe, claiming her as a guest (and as much a witch as she is), and getting her dolled up for dinner, after which she’ll go straight to bed and leave first thing in the morning. (Diana also hides her pried Shiny Chariot card from Akko…we know she was a big fan too!)

Akko holds her own in deflecting barbs from one of the few Cavendish maids left (her communist tendencies were well-documented from the faerie strike episode), but Akko also learns from the maid that Diana’s parents died when she was little, and she immediately feels guilty for all the awful things she’s said to her. Diana is also known within her family as being “kind” like her mother, in keeping with the Cavendish motto: “Affection.”

Akko also proves again that she cleans up nice, but her questionable dining etiquette earns her a simple wordless glare from Diana, one of my favorite moments of the episode.

The classiness and elegance of the evening starts to erode when Aunt Daryl reveals her reason for inviting the Hanbridges: she would like to sell them some prized, priceless Cavendish heirlooms, including the tapestry of Beatrix, one of the Nine Olde Witches who founded the family and was involved in the Grand Triskelion business.

It’s a very distasteful business, especially when Daryl all but begs a departing Hanbridge for money, offering a discount. This is what has become of the Cavendish family, other than Diana: a collection of people who have abandoned pride for greed. Daryl is only interested in maintaining her fancy quality of life, even though it’s unsustainable, considering there’s only a finite amount of Cavendish treasures she can monetize.

For her part, Daryl blames the sorry state of the family to her all-too-kind sister, Diana’s mother, and her insistence on helping others for free, as befits the Cavendish motto. But even if Daryl isn’t responsible for getting the family in this mess, she certainly has done nothing to get out of it.

That’s why Diana believes she must perform the ritual and become family head as soon as possible. Akko almost gets lost int he midst of this family drama, but there’s no way she won’t play a role in resolving it, no doubt unsealing a word and maybe even bringing Diana back to school in the process.

By: magicalchurlsukui

[tortuga-aak]

How Andy Serkis went from playing Gollum to directing his first movie — and the pressure of making a non-Disney 'Jungle Book'

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

Known for being the master of the motion-capture performance following his roles as Gollum, King Kong, Caesar (in the “Planet of the Apes” movies), and currently Supreme Leader Snoke (“The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi”), Andy Serkis is throwing a major curveball on all of us for his feature directorial debut.

“Breathe,” about the life of Robin Cavendish — who became paralyzed from the neck down from polio — and his wife Robin, is a traditional biopic that is fueled by the performances of its leads Andrew Garfield as Robin and Claire Foy (Netflix's "The Queen") as Diana. The intimate love story is a departure from the usual CGI-focused work Serkis is known for. The movie was made through his production company, The Imaginarium, which mostly focuses on mo-cap projects.

But this is only a brief departure.

The opportunity to make “Breathe” came to Serkis while he was in post production on an extremely ambitious project: A live-action “The Jungle Book” movie for Warner Bros. that will feature a lot of big name actors doing mo-cap of the legendary characters that were brought back to the zeitgeist after Disney's CGI blockbuster release of its own "Jungle Book" movie in 2016.

Business Insider chatted with Serkis in New York City about finding the time to make “Breathe,” why he’s completely okay with movies resurrecting deceased actors through CGI, the status of “Jungle Book,” and how he created the Snoke voice.

Jason Guerrasio: You run The Imaginarium with Jonathan Cavendish, the son of the main characters of "Breathe," Robin and Diana. How did you meet him?

Andy Serkis: Jonathan had seen a film I had made called "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" about Ian Dury, who was a polio sufferer, and a punk rocker first and foremost, and he loved it and began telling me the story about his father. And then he told me he had been developing the script for five years. So we started The Imaginarium.

Guerrasio: So basically you were like, good luck with all of that with your family script.

Serkis: Yeah, it wasn't really the idea I was looking for. We were looking for other directors to direct it. And then I took the script home and I was just floored by it. It was just so incredibly powerful and emotional and you never read scripts like this in terms of the emotional content of it. So I was like, "S---, I'm having lunch with him tomorrow and I think I'm going to pitch me directing his parent's life story." So I did.

Guerrasio: At this point it's just script stage, no talent attached.

Serkis: Right. None. And he said, "Yeah, let's do it." So we started developing it and then "Jungle Book" came along and we started working on that and then that became a long preproduction. We shot "Jungle Book," principal photography, worked on it for a year and a half, and then this weird opportunity came up in the long post production we've had. Andrew and Claire became available and we raised the money in seven weeks and we shot the whole thing in seven weeks.

Bleecker Street/Participant MediaGuerrasio: Was that a nice time to shut off the part of your brain that was focused on "Jungle Book" or while making "Breathe" are you juggling that as well?

Serkis: Juggling lots of plates.

Guerrasio: But was it fun to shoot something that wasn't going to be as heavy motion-capture as "Jungle Book" is?

Serkis: I was so looking forward to it. This joy of seeing the performance at the end of the day rather than waiting a year and a half to see how a character is going to turn out eventually was a joy.

Guerrasio: Is that the big difference of directing "Breathe" versus "Jungle Book," the immediacy of it?

Serkis: In many ways it's the least complicated shoot I've ever done. On "The Hobbit" for Pete Jackson I was his second unit director, so that was my first grand scale experience as a director. Stepping onto a set with 150 crew and working for 200 days straight. The technical side of it was a huge education. So I felt prepared when I went into "Jungle Book."

Guerrasio: Was it nice to go back to basics, so to speak, of traditional filmmaking with "Breathe?"

Serkis: The simplicity was tied together with the brief shooting days. On those big projects you have nothing but time, this was like we have to get all of this in seven weeks. There was pressure. I didn't want to just make a film that felt like a drama-documentary that's handheld and not lit well. I always wanted to make it cinematic. It's based on truth but I wanted it to feel like a fairy tale which gradually gets stripped away towards the end of the movie.

Guerrasio: What did Jonathan think of the movie?

Serkis: He was by my side every day.

Guerrasio: But it's one thing if you make a biopic and the person it's based on is still alive, you may meet them briefly and maybe they'll come out and do press. This is the son of the main characters right next to you. Was it more pressure?

Serkis: We're such close friends, it was a joy. And he's so objective about his life. He wanted to see it from the outside. That was a gift.

Guerrasio: So you found the right guy to be your business partner.

Serkis: [Laughs] That's true. It could have gone horribly wrong.

Youtube Embed: http://www.youtube.com/embed/JycCFypvgmI Width: 560px Height: 315px

Guerrasio: What's the latest on "Jungle Book?"

Serkis: We're in a really good place with it. We shot the performance capture, it's live-action, so we shot in South Africa with this amazing young actor named Rohan Chand. Our version is darker in tone to the Disney one. Which I loved.

Guerrasio: So you have seen it?

Serkis: Oh, yeah.

Guerrasio: You didn't feel like, "I can't see it, I have to go in fresh with mine."

Serkis: No. No. Because I just wanted to make sure we weren't covering similar ground and I don't think we are. There was a point where we were neck and neck, these films were potentially going to come out within months of each other.

Guerrasio: Could you sit back and enjoy Jon Favreau's movie and not analyze the heck out of it?

Serkis: When we were shooting at the same time there was a bit of that worry, but I knew our script was for a PG-13 audience. It's a story about identity and we're using performance-capture as opposed to the whole jungle being CG. So, honestly, you can't think about the other one, you focus on what you're doing. I love where it is. We have designed these animals that you can very much see the actors' faces we have — Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch — in them.

Guerrasio: So you're just deep in post right now?

Serkis: Yeah. The animation is flowing. I think it's in good shape.

Guerrasio: I would like your thoughts on motion-capture in general. We've now had CGI versions of living people — Michael Douglas in "Ant-Man," Robert Downey Jr. in "Captain America: Civil War" — but also people who have passed away — Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in "Rogue One" — is there a certain line the industry should not cross in regards to using the tools we have?

Serkis: You mean digital resurrection?

Guerrasio: Exactly.

Serkis: I think if it's handled with taste and it honors actors who have passed and their families are happy, the estates are happy, if it's done in a respectful way, I think that's perfectly fine. But there has to be a good reason for doing it. Dramatically. Storywise. I mean, I think digitally resurrecting any character from history, Abraham Lincoln could have been performance-captured or Winston Churchill for that matter, it's a way of doing it. It's so funny because we love real stories and bringing people back to life through them. Think of how many actors have done an impersonation of somebody else. Wouldn't it be great to have the real Elvis Presley or someone through 3D imagery?

Disney/LucafilmGuerrasio: The recent "The Last Jedi" trailer has Snoke’s voice prominently featured. How did you come up with the voice?

Serkis: When I first worked on it with ["The Force Awakens" director] J.J. [Abrams] there was an evolving design of the character. It was going through lots of changes. But it's all about where a character carries his pain, or aggression, or emotional centers and with Snoke it was very much there [putting his hands to the back of his head]. And his skull has got this big scar in the front, so for me it was a fracturing. He's got this cleft in his head and I think it's very painful for him to speak and yet there's an imperiousness about him. He's severely damaged but there's a vulnerability that's he's trying to cover so that was sort of what I was trying to do.  

Guerrasio: I'd like your thoughts on the recently news about Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual harassment and assault. Weinstein was an executive producer on all the "Lord of the Rings" movies. What's your reaction to the revelations?

Serkis: I think there's no excuse for a culture that allows for any kind of bullying or coercion on predatory behavior and I think we are behoove not just in this industry but across all industries to be vocal about that and to encourage and help and support people who are brave enough to come out and to challenge people who are in positions of authority if they behave badly. That's it. 

NOW WATCH: SCOTT GALLOWAY: Facebook could screen its advertisers, but it doesn't want to hurt profits

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[ramialkarmi]

How Andy Serkis went from playing Gollum to directing his first movie — and the pressure of making a non-Disney 'Jungle Book'

Known for being the master of the motion-capture performance following his roles as Gollum, King Kong, Caesar (in the “Planet of the Apes” movies), and currently Supreme Leader Snoke (“The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi”), Andy Serkis is throwing a major curveball on all of us for his feature directorial debut.

“Breathe,” about the life of Robin Cavendish — who became paralyzed from the neck down from polio — and his wife Robin, is a traditional biopic that is fueled by the performances of its leads Andrew Garfield as Robin and Claire Foy (Netflix's "The Queen") as Diana. The intimate love story is a departure from the usual CGI-focused work Serkis is known for. The movie was made through his production company, The Imaginarium, which mostly focuses on mo-cap projects.

But this is only a brief departure.

The opportunity to make “Breathe” came to Serkis while he was in post production on an extremely ambitious project: A live-action “The Jungle Book” movie for Warner Bros. that will feature a lot of big name actors doing mo-cap of the legendary characters that were brought back to the zeitgeist after Disney's CGI blockbuster release of its own "Jungle Book" movie in 2016.

Business Insider chatted with Serkis in New York City about finding the time to make “Breathe,” why he’s completely okay with movies resurrecting deceased actors through CGI, the status of “Jungle Book,” and how he created the Snoke voice.

Jason Guerrasio: You run The Imaginarium with Jonathan Cavendish, the son of the main characters of "Breathe," Robin and Diana. How did you meet him?

Andy Serkis: Jonathan had seen a film I had made called "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" about Ian Dury, who was a polio sufferer, and a punk rocker first and foremost, and he loved it and began telling me the story about his father. And then he told me he had been developing the script for five years. So we started The Imaginarium.

Guerrasio: So basically you were like, good luck with all of that with your family script.

Serkis: Yeah, it wasn't really the idea I was looking for. We were looking for other directors to direct it. And then I took the script home and I was just floored by it. It was just so incredibly powerful and emotional and you never read scripts like this in terms of the emotional content of it. So I was like, "S---, I'm having lunch with him tomorrow and I think I'm going to pitch me directing his parent's life story." So I did.

Guerrasio: At this point it's just script stage, no talent attached.

Serkis: Right. None. And he said, "Yeah, let's do it." So we started developing it and then "Jungle Book" came along and we started working on that and then that became a long preproduction. We shot "Jungle Book," principal photography, worked on it for a year and a half, and then this weird opportunity came up in the long post production we've had. Andrew and Claire became available and we raised the money in seven weeks and we shot the whole thing in seven weeks.

Guerrasio: Was that a nice time to shut off the part of your brain that was focused on "Jungle Book" or while making "Breathe" are you juggling that as well?

Serkis: Juggling lots of plates.

Guerrasio: But was it fun to shoot something that wasn't going to be as heavy motion-capture as "Jungle Book" is?

Serkis: I was so looking forward to it. This joy of seeing the performance at the end of the day rather than waiting a year and a half to see how a character is going to turn out eventually was a joy.

Guerrasio: Is that the big difference of directing "Breathe" versus "Jungle Book," the immediacy of it?

Serkis: In many ways it's the least complicated shoot I've ever done. On "The Hobbit" for Pete Jackson I was his second unit director, so that was my first grand scale experience as a director. Stepping onto a set with 150 crew and working for 200 days straight. The technical side of it was a huge education. So I felt prepared when I went into "Jungle Book."

Guerrasio: Was it nice to go back to basics, so to speak, of traditional filmmaking with "Breathe?"

Serkis: The simplicity was tied together with the brief shooting days. On those big projects you have nothing but time, this was like we have to get all of this in seven weeks. There was pressure. I didn't want to just make a film that felt like a drama-documentary that's handheld and not lit well. I always wanted to make it cinematic. It's based on truth but I wanted it to feel like a fairy tale which gradually gets stripped away towards the end of the movie.

Guerrasio: What did Jonathan think of the movie?

Serkis: He was by my side every day.

Guerrasio: But it's one thing if you make a biopic and the person it's based on is still alive, you may meet them briefly and maybe they'll come out and do press. This is the son of the main characters right next to you. Was it more pressure?

Serkis: We're such close friends, it was a joy. And he's so objective about his life. He wanted to see it from the outside. That was a gift.

Guerrasio: So you found the right guy to be your business partner.

Serkis: [Laughs] That's true. It could have gone horribly wrong.

Guerrasio: What's the latest on "Jungle Book?"

Serkis: We're in a really good place with it. We shot the performance capture, it's live-action, so we shot in South Africa with this amazing young actor named Rohan Chand. Our version is darker in tone to the Disney one. Which I loved.

Guerrasio: So you have seen it?

Serkis: Oh, yeah.

Guerrasio: You didn't feel like, "I can't see it, I have to go in fresh with mine."

Serkis: No. No. Because I just wanted to make sure we weren't covering similar ground and I don't think we are. There was a point where we were neck and neck, these films were potentially going to come out within months of each other.

Guerrasio: Could you sit back and enjoy Jon Favreau's movie and not analyze the heck out of it?

Serkis: When we were shooting at the same time there was a bit of that worry, but I knew our script was for a PG-13 audience. It's a story about identity and we're using performance-capture as opposed to the whole jungle being CG. So, honestly, you can't think about the other one, you focus on what you're doing. I love where it is. We have designed these animals that you can very much see the actors' faces we have — Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch — in them.

Guerrasio: So you're just deep in post right now?

Serkis: Yeah. The animation is flowing. I think it's in good shape.

Guerrasio: I would like your thoughts on motion-capture in general. We've now had CGI versions of living people — Michael Douglas in "Ant-Man," Robert Downey Jr. in "Captain America: Civil War" — but also people who have passed away — Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in "Rogue One" — is there a certain line the industry should not cross in regards to using the tools we have?

Serkis: You mean digital resurrection?

Guerrasio: Exactly.

Serkis: I think if it's handled with taste and it honors actors who have passed and their families are happy, the estates are happy, if it's done in a respectful way, I think that's perfectly fine. But there has to be a good reason for doing it. Dramatically. Storywise. I mean, I think digitally resurrecting any character from history, Abraham Lincoln could have been performance-captured or Winston Churchill for that matter, it's a way of doing it. It's so funny because we love real stories and bringing people back to life through them. Think of how many actors have done an impersonation of somebody else. Wouldn't it be great to have the real Elvis Presley or someone through 3D imagery?

Guerrasio: The recent "The Last Jedi" trailer has Snoke’s voice prominently featured. How did you come up with the voice?

Serkis: When I first worked on it with ["The Force Awakens" director] J.J. [Abrams] there was an evolving design of the character. It was going through lots of changes. But it's all about where a character carries his pain, or aggression, or emotional centers and with Snoke it was very much there [putting his hands to the back of his head]. And his skull has got this big scar in the front, so for me it was a fracturing. He's got this cleft in his head and I think it's very painful for him to speak and yet there's an imperiousness about him. He's severely damaged but there's a vulnerability that's he's trying to cover so that was sort of what I was trying to do.  

Guerrasio: I'd like your thoughts on the recently news about Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual harassment and assault. Weinstein was an executive producer on all the "Lord of the Rings" movies. What's your reaction to the revelations?

Serkis: I think there's no excuse for a culture that allows for any kind of bullying or coercion on predatory behavior and I think we are behoove not just in this industry but across all industries to be vocal about that and to encourage and help and support people who are brave enough to come out and to challenge people who are in positions of authority if they behave badly. That's it. 

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