Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes Stars Say Those Mo-Cap Suits Were Actually “Liberating”

The modern version of the Planet of the Apes franchise has introduced to Hollywood a fascinating new sort of production–one in which nearly every character is a non-human CGI creation played by an actor in a performance-capture suit. It’s a lot even in this age of CGI soundstages. For the actors who played those ape roles, it was unlike anything they’d ever done before. But as several of those actors told me as part of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes press tour, it turned out that wasn’t a bad thing.

“It’s not you on the screen, so you don’t have to worry about what you look like, or anything like that,” said Owen Teague, who plays the main protagonist ape, Noa. “It becomes about purely the character, and playing the character. You can disappear fully, which I think is what I always want in playing a character. I’m always looking to kind of shed myself, but you don’t often get to fully do that, because you still look like you to a certain degree, you’re still moving like you and talking like you.”

Kevin Durand, who plays the villain, Proximus Caesar, echoed that sentiment.

“Honestly, I thought that I would be restricted by the parameters of the technology, and it actually ended up being the complete opposite,” Durand told me. “When I play humans, which is most of the time, I sometimes feel I have to fight my human vanity at times. No matter what character I’m playing, I have to fight against this idea of, like, ‘Oh, I don’t think I look good on that angle.’ We all wake up in the morning, we look in the mirror, we have days where we’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, how are you doing?’ Or we’re like, ‘Oh, God, really?’ We all have that. And I never once thought about the fact that I was wearing this spandex suit, and had this helmet on with the camera. It was all about connection, it was all about intention. We were, luckily, very well equipped.”

A big part of Durand’s comfort was the result of the cast’s time at what he called “ape school,” where they learned both how to perform using the mannerisms of an ape and how to deal with the mo-cap gear they had to wear.

“By the time we began shooting, and saying the lines that were written, we’re already versed in a particular physical vocabulary, and like our relationships are built,” said Peter Macon, who plays the orangutan Raka. “So then you can ignore, practically, or just forget about the fact that we’re wearing this equipment that we need to wear.”

And that, Durand said, was key.

“The way that we were prepped was that they got us to a point where, at least for me, physically, like I could turn off Kevin, and bring in Proximus,” Durand said, switching to his Proximus voice for that last part. “And then it just came to life. And then within that, okay, what does he want? What does he need?”

There were some drawbacks to this method, though–for folks who played the apes, and especially for the actor who has to play the only main human character. Macon, for one, said that while the process was “liberating,” it took some effort to trust the CGI artists with his performance.

“What was troubling was that I felt like I had limited participation in how I could help the process,” Macon said, indicating it was tough to make changes from take to take without really knowing how Raka would look. “Like, if I know what my face is going to be looking like as an orangutan, perhaps I can adjust my performance or what I’m doing to better serve the mission and not being able to have access to that…gotta let it go.”

“We were in great hands,” Durand chimed in. “WETA, they truly honored the work that we did, because we can very, very specifically see who’s who and like, all I see is Travis [Jeffrey] and I see Lydia [Peckham] and Owen [Teague], and I see Peter. I see my friends up there.”

And while Freya Allen, who plays the human Mae, is used to dealing with CGI environments and creatures thanks to her time playing Ciri on The Witcher show, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes had a whole other challenge in store for her.

“I’ve had to do a lot of imagining things before, you know, monsters and everything like that. But I’ve never had to play out a whole scene and a whole conversation with nobody there,” Allen said. “I’d do the scenes with them, and then they’d be taken out, and I’d do the scene on my own. And so that was definitely something I’ve never done in that way, having a conversation with the air.”

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is in movie theaters now.