My Pressures by Andy Serkis

Read this if you… love theater, the arts, and stories about a person’s life. Bonus if you also love Gollum (played by Andy Serkis), Ulysses Klaue, and Cesar (Planet of the Apes).

Why does this beguile? My Pressures was unlike any other celebrity memoir I’ve read. Granted, I don’t read a lot of them (by-and-large, I’m not interested in most celebs), but this book was a treat. While most people know Serkis from Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Serkis is a wildly creative guy with a proper theater background. His commitment to the craft and his ability to embrace new ways of performance made Gollum what he was. Throughout the book, Serkis shares stories of how his characters chose him so he could choose his characters, and how he’s been able to embrace acting as a career due to this. I came out of reading My Pressures having laughed (quite a lot) and realizing how important it is to take big risks when you know it’s the right thing to do.

What it's about: From a local theater actor to Gollum, Andy Serkis has done stage, film, TV, and voice acting. His physicality brought Gollum/Smeagol to life for the world and his ability to embrace nascent technology (like mo-cap) rather than be afraid of it, allowed some of the greatest performances by an actor to be created, without the actor’s face ever showing. A true testament to loving one’s craft and going after it with everything.