'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' star Owen Teague calls movie 'the Planet of the Apes for our time'
"You could take it just as that amazing blockbuster spectacle and you could choose to go as deep as you want," Teague's costar Kevin Durand said
The Planet of the Apes franchise continues with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (now in theatres), starring Owen Teague, Kevin Durand and Freya Allan, from director Wes Ball, set hundreds of years after the recent trilogy, starring Andy Serkis. As the film's star described, this is the Apes movie "for the information age."
"I remember reading the script and being like, oh this is the Planet of the Apes for our time," Teague told Yahoo Canada in Toronto. "This is the one to examine the issues of today in such an intelligent way."
"I think with these movies, it allows us to step back and look at ourselves in a way that other films, other stories don't, because we can look at our experience with a separation, through the eyes of something else. I think that helps us have a somewhat more objective view."
"I want to say too that for people who just want a great big, spectacular, action-packed, emotive journey, you could go in with popcorn and you could take what you want," Durand added. "You could take it just as that amazing blockbuster spectacle and you could choose to go as deep as you want."
Owen Teague, Kevin Durand met as apes
In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes the Eagle Clan, which Noa (Teague) is a part of, is met with a deadly threat. Guided by Raka (Peter Macon) and joined by a human girl (Allan), who was scavenging from the clan, they set off on a journey that will see Noa face Proximus Caesar (Durand), who has interpreted the words of the late Caesar to serve his tyrannic motivations.
One of the most impressive elements of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is not just in the performances by these actors, transformed into apes on screen, but in the specificity of the execution. Specifically, as Noa begins to gain confidence through the course of the film, the physicality of the character changes as well.
"It was kind of a good milestone system to have of like, OK this is where some of that tension releases for the first time, this is where he feels like he can stand up a little straighter for the first time," Teague explained. "You just have these markers, emotionally where he was, and how he was feeling about everything he was learning, and going through the physical manifestation of that."
The physicality is something Teague and his costars worked on with movement coordinator Alain Gauthier, the Canadian talent whose previous work includes Cirque du Soleil.
"Alain Gauthier and I talked about that quite a bit, ... this is where Noa is emotionally, can we just keep an eye on what my body is doing," Teague said.
Durand showed up late for this "ape school" to transform into the bonobo Proximus. As both Durand and Teague described, they really met for the first time as apes, versus human actors, with Durand starting to "ape" with Teague. There were a number of improvisation sessions that resulted in material used in the film.
"I'm really proud that the process was so organic, there was so much faith amongst everyone, that Wes was so dexterous and able to recognize when things worked really great," Durand said.
Kevin Durand compares 2000s 'Dark Angel' prosthetics to 'Apes' transformation
For Durand, the actor has had a number of impressive physical transformation for characters. To be nostalgic, that also includes the extensive prosthetics he wore as Joshua in the series Dark Angel, co-created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, which ran from 2000 to 2002 and also starred Jessica Alba.
In comparing the transformation in Dark Angel to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Durand said there was a "freedom" to the work on the Apes movie.
"The Dark Angel prosthetics was more laborious in terms of having to sit in the chair," Durand explained. "Jessica Alba would have an 8:00 a.m. call, ... that would mean that I would be in the chair at 3:00 a.m, and it was every day. So that was tough that way."
"But with Apes, ... the freedom that I had with the performance capture is unrivalled to any other kind of experience I've had as an actor, where it just felt like absolute freedom. You had to learn the rules, there's physical rules, anatomical rules that inform the way that your specific ape ... moves, and then the character layers on that. But then once all of that's in place, it's just 100 per cent immersion."
