Hollywood Snubbed Games for Decades. Serkis Says That's Over

"At that point, actors looked down on video games as like, 'I wouldn't get involved in a video game,'" Andy Serkis told Variety, recalling his early days performing in the medium. "Now, young actors coming out of drama schools are like, 'I really want to be in a video game.'"

Serkis was talking about the gap between his first game role, playing the villain King Bohan in Ninja Theory's Heavenly Sword on PS3, and his most recent one as Renoir in Sandfall Interactive's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Nearly two decades separate those performances, and by Serkis's account, the cultural shift in that window has been total. I've been covering this industry long enough to remember when a recognisable actor lending their voice to a game was treated as a novelty, a curiosity buried in the back pages of entertainment coverage. Serkis isn't just saying that era is fading. He's saying it's gone.

The interview is worth listening to in full, because Serkis doesn't frame this as some gradual warming. He frames it as an irony. "Hollywood is using video game engines to drive all of the previews for all of the big action sequences in all of the movies," he said, "but also for cinematographers to use pre-vis and to be able to place light sources or moonlight or sunlight very specifically in a shot." The same industry that spent years treating games as lesser entertainment now relies on game technology to make its own blockbusters. "It's an essential tool of modern filmmaking," Serkis added. "And there has always been that snobbery about video games not being anywhere near filmmaking, but that's all changing."

From Snobbery to Scramble

Serkis was effusive about Clair Obscur specifically, praising its visuals, its music, and the emotional weight of its story. "I'm so thrilled for their success. These guys had never made a video game before. It was their first one, and they learnt on YouTube tutorials," he said. He also made a point that I think gets overlooked in these conversations: "I don't see any difference between that and acting in films, or on stage, or TV. It's exactly the same. You approach the character and build a character in the same way."

That line matters more than it sounds. For years, the knock on game acting was that it was somehow a lesser craft, a paycheque gig where you read lines into a mic for a few afternoons. Games like Clair Obscur, Baldur's Gate 3, and Death Stranding have made that argument impossible to sustain. These are full performance-capture roles with real emotional range, and the results speak for themselves. Serkis's co-star in Expedition 33, Charlie Cox, has already confirmed he's signed on for another game, one he says will require "much more" from him, suggesting a larger motion-capture role.

What strikes me about Serkis's comments is how cleanly they map onto what we're actually seeing in the industry. The Game Awards, the BAFTAs, the Golden Joysticks; there's a legitimate awards circuit for game performances now, and the actors who show up in these roles are getting recognised for it. Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, Idris Elba in Phantom Liberty, Mads Mikkelsen in Death Stranding. These aren't cameos or marketing stunts. They're substantial roles that required real commitment.

Serkis is right that the snobbery is dying. But I'd go further: the power dynamic has flipped. Hollywood isn't doing games a favour by showing up anymore. Studios like Sandfall are offering performers the kind of creative material that's increasingly rare in a film industry obsessed with safe IP. When drama school graduates are actively chasing game roles, that tells you where the interesting work is being made.