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Simply when it appeared like movie star Ukraine commentary couldn’t get any weirder, Andy Serkis threw his hat within the ring. On Wednesday night, the Lord of the Rings actor appeared on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Present with one job and one job solely: to advertise his flip as Alfred Pennyworth within the new Batmanfilm. As a substitute, he determined to touch upon the unfolding geopolitical disaster in Russia and Ukraine—whereas in character as LOTR’s Gollum.
In a crossover occasion no one requested for, Serkis slips into the villain’s immediately recognizable mangled accent to do an impression of Gollum as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Gollum was on this facet and Sméagol was on this facet,” he says. “We needs it. We wants it. We will need to have Kyiv!” At this level, the digital camera cuts to Colbert, who type of nervously laughs along with his eyebrows raised.
“‘No, Valuable, they’re going to impose sanctions!’” Serkis continues. “‘Sanctions? Sanctions, my treasured? In the event that they do something, we’re going to present them shit again.’”
What’s most weird about the entire section is how seemingly out of nowhere the Ukraine reference was. Earlier within the interview, Colbert did point out the sanctions towards Russia, which included The Batman’s theatrical launch within the nation being shelved. However by the point Serkis bought to his Putin-as-Gollum impersonation, they'd completely modified the topic, shifting gears to debate how Serkis voiced a formidable 132 characters within the LOTR audiobooks. He demonstrated his Gandalf, Elrond, and Gimli voices, preserving the dialogue appropriately lighthearted and particular to Center-earth, after which— bam!— “We will need to have Kyiv!”
Keep tuned for Serkis’ subsequent late-night TV look, through which he'll reenact the Zelensky “We're right here” video as Aragorn.