Gollum’s Voice in Santa Monica, Andy Serkis Brings His Memoir to Live Talks Los Angeles

The voice that rasped “My precious” across Middle-earth will be on a Santa Monica stage on Friday, November 6. Live Talks Los Angeles has booked Andy Serkis for an evening built around his memoir at 8 p.m. at the Bezdek Center for the Performing Arts at Crossroads School.

The Book

The memoir is called My Pressures, a play on Gollum’s line. Kirkus Reviews reported that Mariner will publish it on November 3, three days before the talk, and that it imagines what his best-known characters would make of the man who played them.

Live Talks says the book begins with a childhood split between Ruislip and Baghdad and moves through his years in repertory theatre to a 1999 call about an animated character in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. It follows him into Planet of the Apes, Black Panther and Star Wars, and into the performance capture work he helped pioneer.

The Season

Serkis lands in the middle of a busy Live Talks fall. The series hosted Michael Douglas on October 10, and David Byrne takes the Robert Frost Auditorium stage in Culver City on Tuesday, October 13. Time Out LA’s listing also names Dan Aykroyd at the Bezdek Center on October 27, Dustin Hoffman at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on November 13 and Andy Richter at New Roads School on November 19.

Practical Details

Friday, November 6, 8 p.m., Bezdek Center for the Performing Arts at Crossroads School, 1736 22nd Street, Santa Monica. Eventbrite lists general admission at $55 and reserved seats at $65, each with a signed copy of the book, a running time of 75 minutes and free parking. A $50 virtual ticket, also with a signed book and limited to US orders, covers a livestream on Friday, November 13, at 6 p.m. Pacific, with five days of on-demand viewing. The Live Talks page heads the listing November 6 but its in-person ticket block reads November 8, while Eventbrite and Time Out both give Friday, November 6, so check the date at checkout.