When I played Gollum in 'Lord of the Rings,' if I was climbing up the side of a mountain, which I physically did, you know, I was on every single occasion swimming through streams, all of that, that wasn't captured. That was filmed on 35 millimeter, and for certain of those shots, it was rotoscoped and painted over.

My belief about performance capture is that it's a technology which allows actors to play extraordinary characters. But from an acting perspective, I've never drawn a distinction between playing a conventional, live action character and playing a role in a performance capture suit. And from a purely acting point-of-view, I don't believe there should be a special Oscar category because I think it sort of muddies the waters in a way.

I'm working from home a lot. That's very unusual because I'm away a lot, sometimes working on the other side of the world for long periods of time. So, it's hard to manage in the sense that I want to be the best dad I can be but it's almost harder when you have your kids outside the door.

I'd already started directing short films when we were doing 'Lord of the Rings,' then videogame projects. So Peter's known that I've been heading towards directing for a long time. But I always thought my first outing would be a couple of people and a digital camera in the back streets of London somewhere!

In terms of animation, animators are actors as well. They are fantastic actors. They have to draw from how they feel emotionally about the beat of a scene that they're working on. They work collaboratively.

When you start to do research into gorillas or any kind of apes, if you're going to play them, that's one of the biggest misconceptions. And when I did Kong, you're not doing gorilla movements, you're not doing ape movements, you're looking for a personality. It's like saying okay I'm going to do human movements.

I love acting and certainly won't give it up, but it's part of a bigger canvas for me now.