Andy Serkis has reiterated his desire for actors who work in motion-capture suits to be given the same respect as other thespians following his turn as ape Caesar in hit movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Serkis told the Daily Telegraph he was frustrated that his performances as the creature Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films and forthcoming prequel The Hobbit, as well as his latest turn, stood little chance of attracting the attention of Oscars voters.

"I am a bit evangelical, I know, but performance-capture is still misunderstood," he said. "Ten years down the line, people say, 'Oh, so you did the voice of Gollum?' Or people go, 'You did the movements for [King]Kong?' It's frustrating, because I play Gollum and I play Kong. It is acting."

In a separate interview with the BBC, Serkis said: "The emotional content of these performances live and die by what the actors bring to the roles on set. I never approach a live-action role any differently to a performance-captured role. The process of acting is absolutely identical.

"It should be recognised that there are two parts to the process. The first part is capturing the performance. Only later down the line do you start seeing the characters being painted over frame by frame using pixels."

Serkis has said in the past that he would not want to see a special category introduced at the Oscars for motion-capture acting, insisting that success using the technique can be rewarded with current accolades.

"Performance-capture technology is really the only way that we could bring these characters to life," he said. "It's the way that Gollum was brought to life, and King Kong, and the Na'vi in Avatar and so on and it's really another way of capturing an actor's performance. That's all it is, digital make-up."

Serkis's latest film opened at UK cinemas yesterday and has so far proven a hit with the critics. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw said the sci-fi reboot was "a smart and highly entertaining popcorn thriller from British-born director Rupert Wyatt, cheerfully satirical in the tradition of this movie series, yet unpretentious at the same time".