Cocaine Bear Featured On-Set Bear Performer Trained by Andy Serkis

Move over, Paddington, because there's a new bear in town... Cocaine Bear! The upcoming movie, which was directed by Elizabeth Banks, recently released its first trailer and moviegoers can't wait to see what kind of havoc a bear on cocaine will wreak. The movie is based on a real story, but they obviously didn't use an actual bear on drugs when making the film. Interestingly, Entertainment Weekly recently had a chat with Banks, and she revealed Andy Serkis has a special connection to the Cocaine Bear. Of course, Serkis has played some iconic CG characters ranging from Gollum in Lord of the Rings to Ceaser in the newest Planet of the Apes trilogy and Snoke in the Star Wars sequels. 

The bear, who was hilariously nicknamed Cokey, was brought to life digitally by Wētā FX, but sometimes he was played by a bear performer named Allan Henry. Previously, Henry was trained under Serkis. "He knew really well how to walk as a quadruped using prosthetics," Banks explained. "It's a whole skill set. There are few performers in the world who really specialize in this." Banks joked, "Cokey outmatches The Revenant bear every time out."

What Happened to the Real Cocaine Bear?

"I felt a lot of sympathy for the bear," Banks told EW about the real-life Cocaine Bear. "Like, wow, this bear – which, in real life, ended up dead after eating all this coke – ended up being sort of collateral damage in this War on Drugs. And I just thought, 'Well, then this movie can be a revenge story for the bear.' And it just gave me a point of view and a purpose for making it. Like, there's a real message here: 'We should not f*ck with nature, nature will win.'"

Who Stars in Cocaine Bear?

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), Emmy-winner Margo Martindale (The Americans), Emmy-winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Kahyun Kim (American Gods), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) and newcomer Scott Seiss.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks (Charlie's Angels, Pitch Perfect 2) from a screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen), Cocaine Bear is produced by Oscar® winners Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. The Machines) and Aditya Sood (The Martian) for Lord Miller, by Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman (Pitch Perfect franchise) for Brownstone Productions, and by Brian Duffield (Spontaneous). Robin Fisichella (Ma) will executive produce. 

Cocaine Bear is scheduled to hit theaters on February 24, 2023.