Annecy 2025 – Andy Serkis: “My version of the animal farm was not thought of for an algorithm”

Present at the Annecy Festival to unveil its version of the Animal Farm, Andy Serkis granted first ten minutes watch in hand to return to the fourteen years of work behind its animated adaptation of the classic of Orwell.

First: To finally be able to show an audience The animal farm After so many years of development, was it a relief?
Andy Serkis : Oh yeah, it was wonderful! A real cathartic moment.

And if the film had been ready earlier, it might not have stuck as much at the time that we are going through today.
It’s true, but it is also a book that will be relevant eternally. Orwell wrote it 80 years ago, and we have this same question: why are we still doing everything? It’s something that humanity will always hang out. He specifically targeted Stalinism and totalitarianism, but he wanted above all to speak to a young audience, to bring him to ask questions of adults. He wanted them to understand that adults do not always have the right answers. We could never have adapted this story in a frontal way: today, we have our own demons, our own society to examine. And even if we started this project 14 years ago, the political context and certain themes persist: the destruction of the truth, the corruption of innocence. These are pillars of our version.

The idea of ​​refocusing the story around Lucky, this little pig, was it to speak more easily to kids?
Exactly. The novel does not have a central protagonist. We wanted to make young audiences live what it is to have decisions. Lucky begins with absolute innocence: he thinks he is doing what is right, before getting embedded in corruption and finally understanding that he was embarked on a bad path. This journey opened a whole world to us. The idea has always been to make a film for all ages, but especially not a “family film” designed to satisfy an algorithm. This Animal farm is addressed to young curious minds. We had excellent feedback during test projections. Children feel that they are entrusted with moral responsibilities.

14 years ago, was the scenario already the same?
No, at all, he changed a lot. But the heart of the script, Lucky’s journey, remained almost the same.

What blocked? You did not find the people ready to follow you in the adventure?
Yes, that’s about that. The idea came to me during The Planet of the Apes: the originswhen Caesar releases the monkeys. I told myself that we had never made a modern adaptation of The animal farm For a new audience. At the start, we thought of a film in motion captured in real sets. But very quickly, the atmosphere became too dark, the film lost its innocence. And each time, studios or partners asked the same questions: who is this film for? Isn’t it too dark?

So was the animation the solution?
Yes, because it gave us a kind of puppet for a form of sweetness. It also made it possible to be more faithful to Orwell, who himself described the book as a fairy tale. Thanks to that, you could inject visual heat, familiarity. And make humor and darkness coexist. It was a balancingist exercise.

This is your first animated film, and we know that the process is radically different from the live action … not too hard?
Yes, but I loved it! Well, it is true that it is slow and that I thought that I was going to spend all my life there (Laughter.) But I liked each step: the design, the storyboard, the design, the animation as such … I had to give my opinion on each strand of grass, each flower, each setting. We also find that in the cinema in real shots, but there it is a thousand! We changed the design of animals to make them more pictorial, more innocent. And I wanted a realistic, almost classic camera, without impossible movements. It seemed important to me to find cinematography and physical light, close to reality: horses move like horses; Pigs have weight, severity. And above all, I was not afraid to inject a lot of dialogues and close -ups. The characters had to be very lively but without leaving in the pantomime. I have the impression that the less we do, the more we get attached to them.

Let’s talk a bit about vocal distribution: Have you called all your Hollywood friends?
(Laughs.) Some discussions go back to 12 years! Seth Rogen, Jim Parsons, Glenn Close… All loved the book. And we wanted real actors, with comic sensitivity. Seth, for example, embodies a funny and charismatic napoleon. We had to want to spend time with him. In our version, we discover the monsters hidden in ourselves more subtly than in the book, where Napoleon is immediately the villain.

I have to ask you about the progress of The Hunt for Gollumyour film on the universe of the Lord of the Rings. Where are you?
Aau start! The script is being written, the preparation will start a little later in the year and we plan to shoot in 2026.

It will be a single film, or a diptych as Ian McKellen said some time ago?
We hope it will open to seeing her with new feature films The Lord of the Ringsmore The Hunt for Gollum will only be one film.

The animal farm does not yet have a release date.