Yesterday we brought you the first part to our in-depth interview with DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES star Andy Serkis. Such a lovely and chatty chap was he that we had to split the article into two. In part two Serkis gives his views on authorship, the importance of emotion in performance capture, as well as who would win in a fight: Godzilla or Kong.
Your philosophy for performance capture isn’t the only one. I know people in the FX industry who see it a different way. Did you use the computer to fill in things you couldn’t film?
Well yeah absolutely, because you can go back in and re-shoot pick-ups and so we go back to the volume if we have difficulty on set. We film it again in the motion capture volume so there are definitely pick-ups, yes.
So no key frame differences?
That’s not the remit of these kind of films and particular directors work in different ways. Randall Cook’s a very good friend of mine, we worked together on LORD OF THE RINGS. Just to put you guys all in the picture, the debate at the moment is to do with authorship of the performance. So there’s still a grey area about where the performance is truly authored; is it the actor or animators? In this case it really is the authored performance by the actors. If you take a film like THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN for instance, the physicality, all the actors timings, the emotional content, is exactly what the actor does, but of course the type of character that, for instance, had Herge’s THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN characters, and that in that world that genre of film making is slightly more cartoony in element. So that Stephen Speilberg for instance would want Captain Haddock’s jaw to open twice the size that mine can possibly do, which isn’t to say you’re not doing that action, it’s just a matter of setting that up. It’s a debate, people obviously see it in different ways, but I would say that it is entirely based on the authorship of the characters.
What’s the appeal of that for you?
In this case because the emotional content is paramount. Matt Reeves is a very truthful director emotionally, the emotion of this film is what he wanted too. The aspirations for this film are all about the emotional content and that comes from the actors, so it’s not something you can paint in later on. If you don’t get it on the day, if you don’t film that moment that moves you as a director, if you’re not really getting that from the actors on set, it’s never going to be painted in later on. It can’t be manufactured.
What as an actor are the downsides to all this?
There aren’t really any downsides. I don’t really consider acting as a performance capture character, or playing a performance capture role, any different to acting on set as a live action character. I love it as a way of working because it is so liberating and it allows you to play anything. It does require a huge amount of cohoonas to do it. Not so much in this scenario because you are on set and you are interacting with other actors and it feels exactly the same, but sometimes when you’re in a motion capture volume doing a film like THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN, for example, it’s a very clinical environment, a very dry environment. It’s more like the equivalent to working on a stage rehearsal space so you have to do a lot of the work internally using your imagination.
Without any spoilers can you tell us a little about the community of the apes? Koba seems quite feisty. Will Caesar come up against his own community?
The community is basically made up of the reality, the logic of it is Caesar was brought up in a lab. There are a number of lab chimps who have escaped; they’re also chimps and gorillas and orangutans from zoos, and there are also chimps and orang-utans from the entertainment industry. There’s a whole eclectic mix of different apes who have been brought up in that community, and their experiences of growing-up surrounded by humans, or the way that humans are treating them, is hugely varied. It’s very much about Caesar galvanizing them and actually trying to impress upon them that conflict is not the way forward, so that is it I suppose.
Caesar’s talking a lot more, how did you go about finding and developing his voice? There is a really authoritative voice and then a very soft voice?
Yeah that was absolutely the hardest challenge because people were expecting…in RISE, of course a lot of Caesar’s expression was through body language, ape throat vocalisations, and actually through just connecting, but for connecting physically and emotionally, and through eye contact. Whereas this I knew when we started working on the script, the script was very… the intentions were in the line, but it was never the way you were going to say it. So we had to find a vocabulary, a linguistic vocabulary, and because Caesar is the most advanced of the apes I knew I was going to have to be speaking more than the others, basically. It took a lot of finding and exploring to find the right tone and totality and so it wasn’t overly articulate, it’s not too smart. The language, it’s very basic language, a prototype language, but that can also express some quite philosophical arguments. Not what you saw tonight, but later on, Caesar is called on to actually be more reflective and philosophical because it’s much easier to speak or make a noise as an ape if it’s fueled by an emotion of anger or something. But actually if it’s an intellectual moment, or a slightly more philosophical moment, that’s actually quite hard to pull off. So that was I suppose the biggest challenge.
You played Kong and worked on Godzilla, they had a historic fight. Who would really win?
God, that’s a point, I’d forgotten they’d fought actually. I’d quite like to see the [new] movie where they get together.
Where you fight yourself?
(Laughs) That would be an internal conflict. Who would win? Well obviously Godzilla has atomic breath, but then Caesar’s got a bit of a good right-hander. I think probably King Kong would win actually.
During your research for KING KONG were there any scary moments in the jungle?
There were a couple of bluff charges by silverbacks, they come very close those guys. I’ve got reference footage, I was filming and then of course there’s footage of me suddenly dropping my camera because there’s a silverback coming towards me very quickly. You’re literally in and around and amongst these guys, and there is of course a potential, but they’re incredibly peaceful creatures unless you go out of your way to annoy them. They’re just getting on with their thing. There’s a couple of shots I’ve got – actually one in London Zoo. When I was working in London Zoo there were three females and one male gorilla, called Bobby, who sadly isn’t with us anymore. He didn’t like me very much because I had actually formed this bond with Zaire, one of the female gorillas there. So I’ve actually got on camera him looking at me in quite a threatening way and engaging me. Looking me in the eye, and then he was gathering this pile of stones together and I was filming, and he suddenly threw one right smack into the lens of my camera. You could tell he wasn’t a happy bunny.
So how far away was he?
Oh, a few feet away, probably the length of this table (the table wasn’t more than 6ft long).
You hear all these stories about actors having to go through all these heavy make-up procedures. Is it the same when getting into the suit. Do you have to get heavily talced?
Talced? If only. I can’t imagine anything more beautiful, just standing there – “I’m ready to be talced now.” But you go through a process everyday of preparation which is called range of motion. You get into your suit, you then go down to the tech guys who put on all the wiring, which is quite a considerable operation; strands attached to your body. You then put on a head-mounted camera, you go into a volume and you have to do this basic set of exercises which calibrate your suit to the camera. You have to do the same again with the head-mounted camera, you have a set of facial expressions which then calibrate your face to the head-mounted camera. So it’s a process, and that is the equivalent of putting on digital make-up.
Having been through it twice, and knowing a third is on the horizon, how do you think the filming process will change?
Well it’ll be even more difficult next time linguistically. As the apes become more, if you went back to the original series you have Roddy McDowall chattering away about Proust (laughs). It’s sort of people talking, so I imagine the next iteration won’t be that far down the line. I think that will be a real challenge again to find the balance. It’s just easier when it’s something emotional to say, but if it’s something that is conceit or an argument, or a debate, that’s going to be really interesting. Again with physicality as well, how they hold themselves, how they discuss. I imagine there’ll be more council scenes, and I’m only imagining, I don’t know.
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is released in cinemas today. Read our review here.
