Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Visual Effects Supervisor Compares Owen Teague and Andy Serkis

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now playing in theaters, and the new film takes place hundreds of years after the events of the previous trilogy, which starred Andy Serkis as Ceasar. While Serkis does not appear in the newest installment, the actor did share advice for the new cast via Zoom. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with some of the Wētā FX team members who brought Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes to life, and they compared Serkis’ performance to that of Owen Teague, who plays Noa in the new film. 

“The thing that helps a lot is Owen was a total fanboy for Wētā,” Visual Effects Supervisor, Erik Winquist, explained. “So I think the opportunity to get to play this kind of role was a dream gig for him because he told me at some point he was like, ‘One of the earliest movies I remember seeing was King Kong in 2005.’ He was dressed up as Gollum two years for Halloween.” 

“His mom was telling me from the age of five or six, his parties were all about that,” FX Producer Danielle Immerman added. “He’s a huge Andy Serkis fan from being a child.” 

“So knowing that, it was pretty amazing to see Owen on a Zoom with Andy,” Winquist added. “Because Andy generously gave his time one day while we were in ‘Ape school’ and essentially gave every actor 15 minutes of coaching – not just locomotion and their body mechanics – but also to help them find their voice because all of our characters are speaking in this one.”

“And so that was hugely helpful for everybody to just get a sense of the techniques of acting, hearing it from somebody like Andy, and him being able to play that character that has so much gravitas to him,” he continued. “‘Where is he finding that from? Literally, where is his voice coming from in his body to make it resonate in that sort of way?’” 

“I don’t know if it’s ever going to see the light of day – and [director Wes Ball] has referenced that he showed it to me a long time ago – Owen’s audition tape for this. It was one of those moments where, as soon as Wes saw it, he’s like, ‘He’s it. That’s it. We’re done.’ But you can clearly see it. He’s not playing, he’s not imitating a chimpanzee, he’s not playing an ape. He’s just playing the truth of that moment and the thing, and it’s everything that character needed to be. You really see the naivete come out and everything that he needed to be in that moment was just beautiful.”

“Likewise, when Peter’s audition tape [for Raka], it just happened that Owen is facing left to right, and Peter was facing right to left in their tapes. So Wes just literally cut [them together]… And they both chose the same scene for their audition. So he cut that together and there we go. There’s this deep baritone Raka and this naive little kid who’s scared of sitting around the campfire. It was just amazing.”

Stay tuned for more from our interview with the VFX team behind Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. You can learn more about Wētā FX here.