Despite a teaser trailer, a handful of character names, and logical extrapolations based on more than three decades of mythology, we still don’t know much about Star Wars: When The Force Awakens In The Morning And The Alarm Gives Out A Warning I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Make It On Time, By The Time I Grab My Books And I Give Myself A Look I’m At The Corner Just In Time To See The Millennium Falcon Fly By. Yet it’s always seemed safe to make at least one assumption, based solely on the casting of Andy Serkis: that Hollywood’s favorite motion-capture performer will be playing more than one role. After all, you don’t hire Andy Serkis to not fill in for multiple, likely CGI parts, everything from background aliens to Harrison Ford’s lame leg. That would simply be a terrible waste of resources.
But even this most basic assumption is incorrect, according to Serkis. “I can say I play only one character,” Serkis tells Entertainment Weekly, submitting to a typically guarded interview that sees the actor sharing “10 things” about his role, provided you count knowing that he wasn’t there to see Ford get injured, or that people were really interested in spying on the set.” As for the few actual, somewhat informative things, Serkis confirmed again that it is his unaltered voice heard in the trailer (“There’s no digital manipulation. That’s just me”), and that it is the voice of his character: a motion-captured recreation of Benedict Cumberbatch.
Though, of course, that last bit is pure conjecture. Serkis wouldn’t exactly say that he’s playing a digitally animated Cumberbatch, nor would he reveal whether his character was live-action or CGI, or even drop much beyond the slightest of hints as to who or what he is. “The character … He’s been through some stuff,” is always Serkis would say, suggesting that Serkis is maybe playing your neighbor Jerry, who still hasn’t gotten over his divorce and you always seem him smoking out back by the dumpster—hence the gravelly voice. It’s therefore possible that The Force Awakens is about a new generation of would-be Jedi searching for Luke Skywalker, so that Luke can train Jerry in the ways of getting back out there, man.
Or, we could be making things up just to fill the many hours until, as Serkis says, “These things will all come out in the fullness of time.” In the meantime, the thinness of news persists.