London, Mar 28 : British actor Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in 'the Lord of the Rings' trilogy will soon be tackling the life of Albert Einstein in a new movie.

The actor will be taking on the role of one of the 20th century's greatest minds in 'Einstein and Eddington', a joint venture between HBO and BBC.

The movie will follow Einstein's development of his theory of relativity, and also show how Brit scientist Sir Arthur Eddington became the first person to understand the work of genius.

Eddington's role will be played by 'Dr Who' star David Tennant, reports The Sun.

Einstein began work on his theory while working as a clerk in a Swiss patent office, publishing a paper in 1905.

Eddington is famous for his work regarding the Theory of Relativity. In 1919, he wrote an article 'Report on the relativity theory of gravitation', which announced Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world.

Because of World War I, new developments in German science were hitherto not well known in England.

The HBO/BBC project has been written by Peter Moffat, and will be directed by Philip Martin, the same duo who made the 2004 BBC biopic of Stephen Hawking.