First, you let Harry Potter himself read to you the very first chapter of Harry Potter. Now, allow Gollum to read to you the entirety of The Hobbit in one sitting—that’s right, all 287-320 pages of it (depending on your edition). To raise money for coronavirus relief efforts, actor Andy Serkis has announced that he’ll be embarking on a “12 hour armchair marathon across Middle Earth,” reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings prequel “from cover to cover, there and back again.”
As Serkis explains on the #Hobbitathon GoFundMe page, fans can start tuning in on Friday, May 8 at 10 am BST (that’s 5 am EST and 2 am PST for early-birds in the US), with the link shared on GoFundMe and the actor’s social media prior to the reading. The target goal of the fundraiser is £100,000, which will be split evenly between two UK charities: Best Beginnings—which works with new parents, families with young children, pregnant families, babies, and toddlers—and NHS Charities Together, an umbrella organization for all the official charities of the UK’s National Health Service.
The live stream will start at 10am GMT (5am EST, 2am PST) Friday 8th May. The live-stream link will be posted on the GoFundMe page on Friday morning – and our team will post here as well.
— Andy Serkis (@andyserkis) May 7, 2020
In a teaser video released earlier this week, the actor also revealed that he’s currently hard at work doing edits for Venom 2, which he’s directing, and showed off an extremely true-to-scale Gollum puppet who apparently just hangs out in his office. (Watch until the end for a surprise.)
Join me for the Adventure this coming Friday, May 8. Stay tuned for more details on how you can support @NHSuk and @bestbeginnings pic.twitter.com/nxK11BTl4b
— Andy Serkis (@andyserkis) May 3, 2020
There’s no word yet on whether Serkis will be reading the whole thing in his Gollum voice.
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