Andy Serkis is making Middle Earth great again. The actor was on The Late Show Tuesday night to promote his upcoming movie, War for the Planet of the Apes , but host Stephen Colbert had another film franchise on his mind. Colbert is a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so he jumped on the opportunity to get Serkis to speak in the very distinctive voice of the character he portrayed in the films, ring-obsessed Gollum/Sméagol.
Stephen Colbert didn’t ask Andy Serkis to repeat any of Gollum’s most iconic lines from the Lord of the Rings movies. Instead, he handed the British actor a card that had two of President Donald Trump’s tweets written on it. Colbert told Serkis that he could choose to read them as either Gollum or Sméagol, and the motion-caption artiste got into character as the deformed hobbit with dual personalities by hopping up onto his chair and getting into a crouched position.
The first tweet Andy Serkis read was one of Donald Trump’s complaints about the “fake news media,” and the second was his infamous “covfefe” tweet. Andy went off-script and improvised while reading the latter, questioning the meaning of the nonsense word that has mystified so many.
“Wait, what’s covfefe, Precious?” he asked.
“No one knows,” Stephen responded.
The talk show host praised Andy’s performance by saying that Donald Trump’s tweets “actually sound better that way.”
Unlike Gollum, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t bother chasing “nasty hobbitses” all the way to Mordor in hopes of getting his hands on a ring covered in markings he doesn’t understand. Years ago, he complained about former President Barack Obama wearing such a ring.
“Why does Barack Obama’s ring have an arabic inscription? Who is this guy?” he tweeted in October 2012.
Trump’s tweet included a link to an article alleging that Obama wears a gold ring with an Islamic inscription that reads, “There is no god except Allah.” As Snopes points out, close up photos of the ring in question prove that this is false.
Why does Barack Obama’s ring have an arabic inscription? http://t.co/upa00265 Who is this guy?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2012
The New York Times provides further evidence that Donald Trump dislikes rings, noting that he made headlines back in March when he was photographed without a wedding ring .
Andy Serkis didn’t talk Trump on The Late Show , but the Star Wars: The Force Awakens actor has previously criticized the president. During an interview with the Evening Standard , he spoke out strongly against Donald Trump’s travel ban . It really hit home for Serkis because his father was Iraqi.
“We find ourselves instead with a childish bully at the helm who has put catastrophic, heinous and brutal executive orders into place, one presumes to show off how powerful he is,” Serkis said of Trump.
“Many of my own relatives sought refuge abroad. Thank God the world is finally voicing its rage at the election of this hyper-egotistical narcissist.”
Andy Serkis also showed his support for the January 21 Women’s March by tweeting a photo of the event.
Apes unite with women against inequality, hate and bigotry pic.twitter.com/0UEJKB6Jjc
— Andy Serkis (@andyserkis) January 21, 2017
As the Hollywood Reporter points out, Andy Serkis isn’t the only star of Star Wars: The Force Awakens who uses his voice to turn Donald Trump into a fictional villain; Mark Hamill occasionally reads the president’s tweets in character as Batman nemesis the Joker.
[Featured Image by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]