who played gollum in the lord of the rings movies

The characters keep moving from rock to rock. In a typical exterior shot for a movie, “if you pan far enough out, there’s sky,” Letteri said, “but in the Goblin caverns everywhere you look, there’s a mountain interior with thousands of goblins in the background and everything in 3D.

“You’re inside it, and it’s all around you,” Letteri said. Set inside a mountain, the Goblin abode was a particularly tough challenge. “If it wasn’t real, I had to make it,” said Letteri, whose special effects creations ranged from the glorious waterfalls and mountain overlooks in the Elven community of Rivendell, to gritty, grimy Goblin caverns.

Letteri supervised the epic fantasy adventure’s groundbreaking visual effects. The Center Area High School grad need not worry about the commercial success of the latest film project, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the world’s top-earning movie at the start of 2013, grossing $223 million domestically and nearly $700 million worldwide. Joe Letteri learns Thursday if he’s got a shot at winning his fifth Academy Award.

Who played gollum in the lord of the rings movies