IR Interview: Peter Macon & Eka Darville For “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” [Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment] - Part II
Actors Peter Macon & Eka Darville talk to The Inside Reel about communication, voice and movement in regards to the Home Entertainment release of their film: "Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes" from 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
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00:30What a wonderful day!
00:37Oh my god.
00:43Well, which is interesting because it's a weird intellectual exercise, too.
00:47You know, Iga, if you could talk about that.
00:49Because the thing is, is that because he's a gorilla, it's one thing.
00:52But then the way his mind is and his perspective reflects in his voice and his gruffness, all these things.
00:59Could you talk about that and finding that core of him with the voice as well?
01:03Silva is a man of very few words.
01:07And so it was actually challenging for me because I generally rely heavily on verbal communication to find a character.
01:17And so to find how to communicate as much as needed to be communicated without using a lot of words.
01:25Literally, it would be one or two here and there.
01:28Was a real challenge and one that I feel like was really good for me on a self-development level.
01:38Of finding how to create domination within a scene without needing to be verbally dominant.
01:50So it's like the power versus force kind of argument of how do you position yourself in a space?
01:55How do you create an energy field around you that makes it feel like you're taking up more space than I do?
02:02Because obviously I'm not a...
02:03But did you do it physically?
02:05When you were doing the moat, did you find yourself doing that kind of stuff?
02:08Yeah, very much so.
02:09But it's more of an energetic quality because I am the size that I am.
02:13I can't obviously just become this silverback gorilla.
02:16But I can take up that much space and find the proximity to the other characters and how to position myself in a room in order that it creates the power exchange.
02:27And so it was a really fascinating process.
02:33And one that really leant very heavily on the physicality.
02:39And I'll give my props to Alain Gaultier and Andy Serkis who coached us through Ape School for six weeks in order to be able to find how to be these different creatures.
02:52Because the way that a gorilla moves versus the way that an orangutan moves versus the way that a chimpanzee moves are very, very different based on their skeletal structure.
03:02And then how their vocal articulation would work if we kind of extrapolated into an imaginary future.
03:11So, yeah, there's so much that went into it in order for what you end up seeing on screen to just be like, oh, yeah, of course, talking apes.
03:21What did I miss?
03:31She spoke.
03:33She called my name.
03:38You misheard.
03:41You said this Nova was smarter than most.
03:46Within reason.
03:49Some intelligence to be sure.
03:51I have a name.
03:55May.
04:00I know where they're taking your clan.
04:02Like, obviously, at the max, the fact that you're talking about learning from Andy, Andy understands the periphery of this.
04:10You know, the aspect of what the themes are, the aspect of dominance, of hope, of belief, you know, in everything he's played with.
04:17You're talking about Kahn.
04:18You're talking about Gollum.
04:19But the thing is, is that finding yourself in what the world means to each of these people, each of these apes is key to this.
04:29And obviously, he taught you a lot about that.
04:32Could you talk about some of the takeaways about the world that you gleaned from ape school, from Caesar himself, I would say?
04:40That's a great question.
04:45And I think that that is, that was maybe even in the peripheral, like, theme of our improv in ape school, like where we had to, you know, bring to the table the imagination work, but also in juxtaposition to other apes.
05:04You know, like chimpanzees are very, you know, there were more chimps in this movie.
05:08So there were more chimps in ape school.
05:11But they're very, they're very political.
05:13They have very, you know, like, we're, you know, gorillas are very, you know, they're calm and steady, but they're very, you know, powerful.
05:22And they, you know, there's like a difference between like the bigness and the stillness.
05:27You know, orangutans are kind of, I mean, because of orangutans, they move at a different pace.
05:33You know, like they interpret and inhabit space based on how fast, you know, like so often if there was danger, like I had to, you know, think in terms of, you know, like, how do I get the hell out of Dodge?
05:48Because I'm not, you know, like, what's my, but that's my exits.
05:52My exit is going to take me maybe three, four more beats then.
05:56And you have longer arms too.
05:58Yeah.
05:59So like, you know, thinking of like, it's not just about like darting away, but it's like, well, if I extend my arm, because, you know, orangutans have very long arms and, you know, pretty, you know, short legs, but like the hands and the feet operate like the same.
06:13So, you know, but just thinking about my exit.
06:16So my exit is like one arm, one foot, and I'm out of it in two moves as opposed to running, you know what I mean?
06:22But it might take me a little bit longer to execute that move, but it's just as efficient.
06:26And so when we're, you know, doing these exercises, improv exercises with each other and how we mill and seed and interact with each other, it is training us, or it was training us, not only with the physicality of the, but the thinking behind the logic behind what the moves are based.
06:47And so that was, you know, immeasurably helpful to have that as a building block and as a base.
06:54And then actually while we're filming on the days to have Elaine there reminding us of specificity, you know what I mean?
07:03Or having Andy for, you know, consulting, you know, just in terms of like if I had something, an idea that I'm struggling with to be able to really work that out with him because he's, you know, he is the guru, right?
07:17And he's operated on all of these different levels from, like you say, from Kong to Gollum, you know, like the largest of the large to the smallest of the small.
07:25And, you know, but that level of specificity, you know, is what was required.
07:31And I think that level of specificity is what, you know, three-dimensionalizes the whole experience of watching these talking, you know, these evolved, you know, apes.
07:43Legend says ape and human live side by side.
07:48Impossible as that may seem.
07:50Why do they hunt her?
07:53She is smarter than most.
07:55The elders did not tell us everything.
08:01About this world.
08:05Bend for your king.
08:09Apes hunt humans.
08:14That is wrong.
08:19I mean, it was an honor to get to work with Andy.
08:21He's so generous with his time as somebody who motion capture has this weird effect where you're you do these massive films, but you're kind of invisible in it.
08:31And so Andy is he in his field, he is by orders of magnitude more successful and has pioneered this technology more than anyone else.
08:43But it's really it's not like he's a Brad Pitt or Vin Diesel or one of these people that everyone just immediately recognizes and knows.
08:51But his contribution to the industry is just is so massive.
08:55And so for somebody with the caliber of the work that he's done and the pioneering that he's done in this technology, he's so humble.
09:03He's so he's so generous with his time and willing to work on.
09:06I think I'll endeavor to be the first person to say specificity correctly on this call.
09:11There you go.
09:12Very nice.
09:18Something specific in terms of knowing.
09:21Sorry.
09:22Yeah, definitely.
09:23Because, I mean, the difference of the skeletal structure of an orangutan versus a gorilla is really different.
09:29And so he would give little, little, little kind of pointers where it would be like, oh, as a chimpanzee, when you're on the quadrupedding on the arm extension so that we could run like apes, a gorilla, like a chimp will have their hands turned over this way.
09:46So they're running like this, whereas when a gorilla stands up, it's kind of turned out.
09:51And so they have this like completely different kind of physicality in the way that they carry themselves because of the size.
09:57And so, yeah, there was like a lot of little tweaks where he would be like, oh, just make sure a gorilla will always do this.
10:05And then with a chimp, it's like with a gorilla, they're sticking their butt out.
10:08It's like you have this very rigid, like almost like a plank through your lower spine versus the chimpanzees.
10:15It's very rounded through that part of their body.
10:17It's much more kind of like drop down and into it.
10:19And I'm sure Peter can speak to the differences within orangutan.
10:22But, yeah, it's all these little tweaks.
10:30There's not like one major thing.
10:31It's like all these little tweaks and little pointers.
10:34And Alain being the amazing movement wizard that he is coming in and making sure that like, yeah, we were doing things.
10:43Like, for instance, one of the things for me was in all of the water fighting sequences or even in the fight sequences, because I'm only like 6'1".
10:53And this guy is way bigger than everyone else.
10:59And so it's like I've got a couple inches, but it's not like this towering figure.
11:06And so in order to make me look and feel like a bigger guy, we put weights on my wrists and ankles so that I would move like a heavier boy moves.
11:15And so like little things like that.
11:29.