[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

I think the CG Gollum was great. In fact, it remains the best CG character I've ever seen. He looks alive--there's nothing dead behind those eyes the way there sometimes is in other CG. He moves alive--there's nothing inorganic about the way he navigates the world. He sounds alive. Serkis not only did excellently with physicality, but with voice. It's a shame he never really got the recognition he deserved for excelling at what was clearly a very difficult job. He doesn't look too clean-cut or rubbery, the way that a lot of the CG in the newer Star Wars movies does.

Unfortunately, something like Michael Therriault's Gollum wouldn't work onscreen, I don't think. It's all done with stage makeup. He seems to be in shape, but he's not nearly as thin as his makeup suggests. It works onstage, because there's a different kind of suspension of disbelief in theater. In a huge playhouse, he really would come across as skeletal. Unfortunately, the camera sees everything, and in the case of something like that, it would just see someone in makeup. There's also the added disadvantage that whoever they cast would have to look plausible next to Elijah Wood, who is a very small, slight person. There are ways to cheat a lot of size-related things in cinema (and isn't LOTR a testament to that?), but the camera can't make Gollum look much thinner than the actor already is. Not to mention, the actor would have to be, as already discussed, in good phyiscal shape. John Rhys Davies was made to appear much shorter as Gimli, but Gimli is still shaped like JRD. That's why you'll often hear about actors gaining or losing weight for a role. Some of that can be taken care of with creative costuming, but not all of it.