One thing on the mind of Planet of the Apes fans is whether or not Andy Serkis is involved in the newest edition of the franchise, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Actor and filmmaker Andy Serkis portrayed the ape Caesar in 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. Serkis’ performance capture acting drew praise in each of the three films, but with Caesar’s death in War for the Planet of the Apes and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes taking place generations after the previous film, it appears the franchise is moving on from everyone’s heroic chimpanzee. However, that doesn’t mean the cast and crew of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes didn’t seek out Andy Serkis for advice during the movie’s development.
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ComicBook.com spoke to actor Owen Teague about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Teague plays a young ape named Noa in the film, and he was asked about Andy Serkis lending advice on performance capture acting. “Well, yeah, we met on Zoom. I think he was working or directing something at the time, so he couldn’t actually come to Australia, which was a shame, but just the fact that we got to speak to him at all was amazing,” Teague said about Serkis. “It was so valuable getting to talk to him. He’s been one of my reasons for being an actor since I was six years old, so it was very surreal for me. But it was really good to talk to him about just how similar performance capture is to live-action work. His biggest thing was to approach this the same. You’re just acting. This is acting. You’re putting on a costume of this physical character, but everything else remains the same, which was really helpful to hear because I think I’d kind of been neglecting that a little bit. Maybe I’d been putting too much emphasis on the physical side of it. So yeah, he was just lovely. He was so generous and he worked with all of us in groups and yeah, he’s amazing.”
Advice Andy Serkis gave on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
ComicBook.com also attended an edit bay visit, which had Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes director Wes Ball on hand. Ball revealed that there were discussions and thoughts of bringing Andy Serkis in to play a different Ape character, but that eventually didn’t happen.
“I got to know Andy a little bit on the previous movie, right?” Ball said. “And Matt [Reeves] would always say, ‘He’s the best actor I’ve ever worked with.’ And we thought early on, ‘But man, can we bring Andy in, can we play him in a character? That would be pretty awesome.’ And then Andy actually had done a thing where he had read one of the lines against one of the actors first day, just like, ‘Can you help us?’ And so he read, and he did Caesar. And you hear it, and you’re, ‘Holy shit, it’s Caesar.’ Not that he couldn’t do it, but it just kind of felt wrong. It’s like we’re saying that time is over. We decided not to do it, basically.”
He continued, “And so we very much tried to hold onto how there’s a cadence to the speech. It is not just fluid and perfect, and it’s maybe a little bit off, and they do still sign at times, so we tried to find that sweet spot. But Andy was crucial, I think, in just sitting with us and talking about this, like, how do we stay true to the spirit of things while still carving our own path, but also I was like, ‘Dude, this is so valuable what you’re talking about, and I’ve got a bunch of actors.’ Andy had a point where he had made Apes, he had already made Gollum, King Kong, what’s his name from Tin Tin. He’s a veteran at this point, and all of our actors here, no one’s never done this before. This is totally new for them.”
Directed by Wes Ball, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters on May 10th.
