The Umbrella Academy’s Tom Hopper on the Troubles of Wearing a Gorilla Body Suit

Though some of his fellow cast members arrived in season two with a new status quo, The Umbrella Academy star Tom Hopper is still as gigantic and stuck in an ape-body like he was in the first. We got the chance to speak with Hopper and his co-stars about the new episodes very soon and had to bring up one thing that seemed like an upgrade for Luther’s gorilla body in season two, his gigantic hands. Hopper finds himself in multiple scenes drowning his many sorrows over a plate of food, something that seemed like it might be awkward while wearing those Kong-like hand prosthetics. Turns out? Not really!

“Well it’s actually not so bad, you know? ‘Because they cover like the tops of the hands but I kind of keep all my dexterity in my fingers,” Hopper said of his new hand covers. “I mean, the biggest thing is not knocking them because it comes off around the edges. So it’s all about the edges and keeping them looking neat especially for the close-up shots.”

He continued, “More than anything with that suit it’s the heat. That’s the thing you gotta deal with the most it’s the on-set stuff and the Toronto summer. Any time you were in that prosthetic, there’s just no ventilation in it. There’s no where for anything to go. So any kind of internal heat, so I think you said it Emmy, it was like my own personal internal sauna. Yeah, that’s what it’s like Yeah, it’s my own sauna, so I’m just dripping inside it.”

Luckily for Hopper though, the heat seems to have been well worth it. Ahead of the premiere tonight, the new season of the Netflix original series has arrived to critical acclaim and a near perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. At the time of writing this article on Thursday there are 43 reviews for The Umbrella Academy Season 2 have been posted to Rotten Tomatoes (including the review from ComicBook.com’s own, which you can read here). Of those 43 reviews, 40 are positive, giving Season 2 a 93% overall score, an improvement on season one’s 75% rating.

The Umbrella Academy Season 2 makes its Netflix debut on Friday, July 31st. The series also stars Ellen Page, David Castañeda. Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Emmy Raver-Lampman, and Justin H. Min. The official description for The Umbrella Academy season two reads:

“Five warned his family (so, so many times) that using his powers to escape from Vanya’s 2019 apocalypse was risky. Well, he was right – the time jump scatters the siblings in time in and around Dallas, Texas. Over a three year period. Starting in 1960. Some, having been stuck in the past for years, have built lives and moved on, certain they’re the only ones who survived. Five is the last to land, smack dab in the middle of a nuclear doomsday, which – spoiler alert! – turns out is a result of the group’s disruption of the timeline (déjà vu, anyone?). Now the Umbrella Academy must find a way to reunite, figure out what caused doomsday, put a stop to it, and return to the present timeline to stop that other apocalypse. All while being hunted by a trio of ruthless Swedish assassins. But seriously, no pressure or anything.”