Andy Serkis transcends the digital makeup

The difference is subtle but important: performance capture vs. motion capture.

Both are used and talked about in cutting-edge cinema and digital effects. But one of the names suggests it captures only motion, while the other gets specific, capturing a whole performance. You know, the kind an actor gives.

Andy Serkis is careful to call the art performance capture. Every single time.

He has become the go-to guy in Hollywood to help created layered characters that appear digitally on film.

He pioneered the idea in Gollum, achieving technical awards for the almost-human hermit but going all but ignored for the acting work that went into the "Lord of the Rings" films.

He renewed the relationship with special effects company Weta Digital to play the title character in "King Kong" and will appear in Steven Spielberg's Tintin film at the close of the year as the humorous Captain Haddock.

He also plays Caesar in the new "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," carrying the show with his nonverbal performance. He outshines the rest of the cast that actually is allowed to show their real faces on screen while Serkis acts through digital makeup.

So you will have to forgive Serkis for being a little evangelical about the art of performance capture in a recent conversation at Comic-Con with the Deseret News.

"I don't seek them (performance-capture roles) out, but when they present themselves, if they are a great role, like Caesar is, clearly it was a no-brainer. It was just a brilliant part."

Serkis has a background in stage and film, but he has mastered the ability to move and behave like creatures as well, a lot like Lon Chaney did in the classic silent monster movies such as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." But other actors and the film industry don't quite get it yet.

"It's a long, long road. A long, hard lonely road," he said. "People really still think there is a kind of a mystery attached to it, but in actual fact, as technology improves, it only serves to prove that acting is acting and all it is is another way of recording an actor's performance."

He wasn't afraid to take on Caesar, even after being known for his work as cinema's biggest and most famous ape.