Monkey business is serious business, according to Owen Teague, Freya Allen, and Kevin Durand. The stars of Wes Ball’s upcoming new chapter in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” attended an event at the British Film Institute (BFI) in London co-hosted by Andy Serkis, and it turns out that the signature ape walk was something its lead actor struggled to shake.
Both Teague and Durand went through the infamous ape school for the franchise and the new “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” hero admitted that he struggled to climb back up the evolutionary ladder after finishing the film. “I did a film, you know, right after we wrapped this, like a couple of months afterwards,” recalled Teague. “And the director comes at me at one point and goes, ‘Hey, man, I don’t know if you know this, but you walk like a chimp.’ And I went, ‘No, I don’t.'”
It was something that his co-star, Freya Allen, who plays Noa’s human ally Mae, was quick to point out to her co-star’s amusement. “So he just actually does,” she said. “I’m not gonna lie, like I was watching you go down the corridor today. And I was like, ‘sorry, wait a sec, that is not a human right there.’ I think it’s with you forever.” Incredibly, it’s this ingrained performance style that could make “Kingdom” as believable as the trilogy before it.
Kevin Durand wants a post-grad human school
Owen Teague wasn’t the only star who had difficulty getting out of “ape” mode. Kevin Durand, who plays the tyrannical Proximo Caesar, the new king in “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” suggested a good solution for the cast going forward. “We talked about how we had ape school to get us into this world,” he said. “The problem was that they didn’t give us a human school to teach us how to reenter society as humans. So yeah, it’s still a problem [laughs].”
While it might still be an issue for its cast, director Wes Ball, who was also in attendance, expressed his amazement over the stars’ performances. “Before we even have the character models in, I’m looking at basically the skeletal movement of these guys. I can pick out which actor is which just by how they move,” he explained. “So there’s all this personality and character that comes through with the way you guys interpret apes. It’s really fascinating.” You can see how the new school of apes handles things when “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” the 10th entry in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise, takes over theaters on May 10.