Hearing two men talk about seriously about acting as apes is a bit weird. Itâs something kids do in their backyard but Andy Serkis and Terry Notary are not only getting paid to pretend they are apes, theyâre doing it in a Planet of the Apes movie. Rise of the Planet of the Apes stars Serkis, best known for his work as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, as Caesar, an ape with hyper intelligence who becomes aware of the cruelties bestowed on his kind and decides to rise up against the offending humans eventually resulting in apes taking over the world. Notary is both the ape movement coach on set and also portrays several different main primate characters. The two sat down with us last August while on the set of Rise of the Planet of the Apes to talk about the performance capture, the filmâs message and much much more.Note: This is a transcript of a roundtable that took place during the set visit. Questions were asked by several different journalists. If you'd like to listen to the audio, click here.Question: Andy, how different is your work on this movie as compared to King Kong?Andy Serkis: Itâs entirely different because Kong was a 25-foot baboon and this is the arc of a chimpanzee who is reared by human beings and has also inherited a certain amount of genetic intelligence so itâs entirely different. In fact, Terry was working with a lot of the performers about a month beforehand but I really didnât know I was going to be on board this job until very late on in the day and I think everybody assumed that because I played a 25-foot gorilla it would just be like a breeze. But, obviously, gorillas and chimps and orangutans they all move entirely differently and have different personalities and so on. So itâs like starting from scratch on a completely different role, itâs like saying King Lear or Hamlet, theyâre entirely different.Can you talk about what kind of research you did with chimpanzees?Terry Notary: A lot of videos. Videos, videos. Thatâs probably the best thing, we put videos up in the monitors in the Volume where we work and just try to emulate and just go home and watch videos at night and you see the little nuisances and the little subtleties. I think thatâs whatâs really going to make a difference in this film with the authenticity of the movement into how these characters behave. The big stuff, the big jumps, big leaps, thatâs all the easy stuff. Itâs the little subtleties that are going to make a difference and make it really special I think. So we really kind of focus on watching the timing and the weight and the balance and the mindset and just the rhythm of the three apes: the gorillas, the orangutans and the chimps, because theyâre all so different.AS: And also at the end of the day, of course, itâs not just about doing gorilla or chimp or orangutan movements, itâs about character and thatâs what beautiful about this script is that itâs a really highly intelligent script and treats all of the ape characters with as much reverence as human characters. Thereâs no kind of species separatism or species preference. Theyâre written with real integrity, with layer and depth and thatâs certainly why , and Terry probably too, responded to the script. Itâs a brilliant script and a fantastic modern allegory about manâs abuse of nature. Itâs written with such a lot of love, the script, and I think thatâs the point. When weâre going about researching apes and so on, youâre not just looking for movement. This isnât motion capture; weâre not just capturing motion. You can put dots on an ape and let him run wild in a studio, youâd get some great motion but this is about performance. Itâs about making acting choices about where your character is at any step of the journey. Personally speaking, Caesar is beautifully written character with a very, very big arc and I get to play him from the age of 3 years old until this very innocent chimp reared by human beings up to a kind of Che Guevara character who is leading a revolution basically, with lots of very, kind of, nuanced moments, written and crafted between us in between. And all of the characters, they all have layers and depths and weâre working very, very closely on each individual journey.One of the things we noticed watching playback was the hand extensions. Can you talk about using them and how it affects your character?TN: Yeah well itâs obviously a lot easier to quadruped with the arm extensions and WETA has figured out a way to make the arms look as though they are hitting the ground. All we need to do with our arm extensions is just fold our wrists and it looks as though weâre knuckle walking. So that was something we had to get used to was walking on these arm extensions and getting the weight and the balance and the nuance of walking with that anatomy. And we were sore for a few weeks, Iâll tell you. But itâs really turned out to be an asset in a lot of ways just because we can quadruped and then we can stand up, we can lose the arm extensions in the shot and then use our hands and the model. The puppet still articulates perfectly so we can reach up and grab something and then put the arm extensions back on and quadruped away. So they figured out a way to really make it work for this film and what we thought was going to be a big challenge has turned out to be one of our tools that weâre using.Andy, did you look at any of the original films at all in terms of personality of the character?AS: Not so much for the personality but for the mythology and to try and see where the writers were coming from in terms of fitting this as a prequel. And there are lots of resonances, there are so many things which pay off from the original film: character names, character references. Actually what was really useful from watching those films, thereâs an incredible documentary which Roddy McDowell narrates actually about the whole mythology of the five films and that was really useful just to see where we end up by the end of this, really. Which is why, again, the script. I canât tell you. It landed on my desk and I was on another shoot and it was like, I knew it was going to be happening but I didnât realize when the writers came up with that draft, they obviously love the franchise, they love the material and found a very clever way of bringing us into that story. So it was useful in terms of plugging into the overall sensibility of the movie,Are there any movements that humans couldnât do?AS: Not really movements because theyâre much more advanced, theyâre much more bipedal, they speak, they talk, they are in effect human beings in many ways and so their physicality, it nods towards it in the films and weâre really the step before that. Weâre literally going from quadrupeding apes or, with Caesar, heâs a little bit more advanced, but he reaches a level of intelligence, which is in tune with where theyâre going to be heading.Andy you talked about some of the advancements from Gollum to Kong, can you talk some more about the advancements here, like with the stunts and Terry can you talk about preparing them for those stunts in the motion capture?TN: Obviously weâre stretching the boundaries here with some of the stuff weâre doing and what is nice about the cross over with the performance capture is we can accentuate some of the things in post, what weâre going to do. Like with our fight sequence, Rocket and Caesar have this amazing fight sequence thatâs going to happen, we can block it out and really do the fight but when it comes to leaping into the trees and flipping and doing the major stuff, I think the animators are going to take over that part. So we will be pretty ground-based doing the stunt. So I think the main thing we are focusing on, because we donât have dialogue, is that the performance, the acting, the actual performance has to be so full. We have to be soâ¦there with our performance so it reads because weâre telling an audience a story with very little dialogue and so expression and feeling and heart is our tool that weâre using to express how we feel. So the acting and the performance is really a key to this whole film.Andy, youâve been at the forefront of mo-cap technology since its inception. Can you talk about some of the changes over the last decade?AS: Yeah sure. Weâre at a point now where in this film we are pushing the boundaries, with the relationship to a live action shoot, more than ever before. Sixty, maybe 70% of the performance capture in the movie is literally graded on a live action set. Thatâs a first. Iâm not aware of any other film that has used it as much and I think this film is a perfect example of the usage of performance capture for that reason. You are getting dramatic performances, theyâre creatures which are slightly abstracted and so it allows the actor to drive a character rather than certain movies which have used performance capture recently that have tended to make the performance capture character look the same as the actor which to me seems a little bit misuse of performance capture if you know what I mean?But going back to your question, when I started working on Gollum we had a very small tin shed basically with about 6 or 8 cameras, you couldnât move out of a three meter square, it kept breaking down. Then you had just moving from physical capture, with Kong we started to use the facial capture, wearing facial markers, because Gollum was shot on 35mm but was performance captured as well but facial performance was key for him animated over and rotoscoped over.What changes would you like to see?AS: I think weâre at a stage where weâre moving away from using, because we have head mounted camera rigs for capturing face and that can be a little bit conspicuous and get in the way. Itâs not going to be long, maybe two years three years, where weâre just going to be filming the performances, moving away from markers.Youâre both pioneers with this. How do you make actors youâre working with who are not in performance capture get into it? I assume it might be tough with some actors who have never worked with it before. Is there a trick to getting a scene going with them?TN: You know what I think? When we go in the Volume and thereâs an actor that has just put on a suit for the first time, I think when they see Andy and I work together and really getting into the characters and just performing and acting and being there that theyâre like âWow, I donât really have to think about this stuff. Iâm a puppeteer.â Basically weâre puppeteers and if youâre there and youâre in the character, the puppet is going to look good. Itâs going to breath life and I think once they find out how to trust this system, you just forget about it and just perform, then itâs just second nature, it just becomes, yeah itâs easy.AS: Youâre taking about the other live actors. James Franco, Frieda Pinto, thereâs no question. Weâve arrived at a stage where other actors who are playing live action characters and not phased by it in the slightest. They can just see a performance going on and say âOkay, so we donât look the sameâ but I think it would be equally as strange to act against someone in a chimp suit. Weâre engaging and finding moments which are real and just happening as, youâre just acting with someone else basically and I think thatâs the big realization across the board that the whole industry is responding to the performance capture. Itâs no longer this kind of strange, freakish activity that happens somewhere else. Itâs absolutely part of the parcel of moviemaking now and is being accepted in that regard.How much do you know about Caesarâs future? Does it go without saying that we see the rise of the apes or is his future not necessarily set?AS: There has been some talk of future scenarios but weâve not talked directly about Caesar in that. Itâs obviously set up for the next stage of the journey because there is a missing link, really, between this film and where the original Planet of the Apes starts off. You could expand on that, you could keep going really. I expect if it does go on then Caesar will play some kind of part in it, heâd have to I guess.What are the general misconceptions about ape movies?AS: We get called monkeys all the time. And there are lots of banana jokes.TN: No more banana jokes.AS: And we get treated very differently because, itâs very interesting. Because we wear these suits people treat usâ¦and funny enough, in the Planet of the Apes documentary they talked about the orangutans hung out with the orangutans, the chimps hung out with the chimps, and the gorillas hung out with the gorillas. And to a certain extent thereâs a little bit of that. We tend to knock around together. Weâre happy in our LED markers and grey suits.TN: Also, to answer your question, people have a tendency, when they first get in the suit, to overact. To try to do something. To try to be something. I think when you just go back into yourself and you become, you just work on the subtleties. If you look at apes they are relatively still most of the time. Thereâs a real groundedness to them. Thereâs a real beautiful stillness. And when you can capture that essence of just being still and present and aware and hyper sensitive, all at the same time, you know, and then explode all of a sudden. Thatâs what I think is the biggest challenge, is just being still and learning how to just be present in that stillness and not over do it, not over act. Try to be an ape and find the stillness in yourself and thatâs what they have. They have this sort of hypersensitive peace and awareness and intelligence that is beautiful.AS: And also what weâre talking about here in this movie particularly is there are different levels of intelligence within the apes. Some apes have been brought up in zoos, some are ex-laboratory apes, some are still being tortured in laboratories, and some have had this drug which is part of the cure for Alzheimerâs that Will Rodman, played by James Franco, is experimenting with. So they have a raised, like Caesar has a kind of level where youâre looking very specifically at each different ape so that when you see them all come together.Last week we were peopling some of the other apes. The great thing about performance capture is you can go off and then, without changing costume, you can become another character. So we spent like the 3 days last week putting together a whole tapestry of other minor characters in the atrium. Just little vignettes, little snapshots of individual characters to people the world so theyâre not a faceless mob of apes. When you start to do research into gorillas or any kind of apes, if youâre going to play them, thatâs one of the biggest misconceptions. And when I did Kong, again, youâre not doing gorilla movements, youâre not doing ape movements, youâre looking for a personality. Itâs like saying okay Iâm going to do human movements.TN: Itâs all different, itâs all individual.In Kong, Peter gave you a human role as well so we could see you on screen. Is there anything like that in this movie?AS: I was offered a role, I turned it down because I didnât particularly like the role, but in all honesty, Caesar is such a great character that I knew Iâd have my hands full enough playing that role. And thereâs no need to play some sort of on screen character.Have you been doing the sign language yourself?AS: We have a sign language teacher.Are the hands going to be CGâd later on?AS: Weâre doing it on set. Itâs all captured. The great thing is itâs all captured on set. When you touch something, itâs there. Weâre doing some stuff in the Volume but the majority is live action.TN: There are cameras capturing the movement that weâre doing in the space. And weâre also on film. 35mm film, and thereâs also reference cameras all throughout the room so everything that we do is recorded and stored away so that the animators can go back and look at the little things, the little twitches or whatever it is, to really capture.So is there a different rig for the hands? Because it seems like the hands are going to be more complicated.AS: Because they are using a lot of the witness cameras, weâre wearing finger markers while weâre shooting live action. We probably wonât have to go and repeat it.The great thing about the original film is that it was an upside down world where the humans were slaves and the apes were their overloads. You play the character thatâs going to usher that world in, so how do you sort of keep the sympathy of the character whose destiny is subjugate every single person sitting in this tent?AS: Thatâs a really good question and I think the thing is weâre playing himâ¦you do see his journey from being, how he responds to brutalization and witnessing brutalization and bullying and all these shocking things because heâs brought up as an innocent. Heâs quite innocent and you see his journey from innocence into moments of realizing that actually it can be a cruel world out there. And he has been brought up because Will, James Francoâs character and John Lithgowâs character, theyâre incredibly humanitarian. Heâs been brought up in a loved family. In a way youâve got to forget that heâs a chimp, you treat him as a child whose been brought up in a loving environment then suddenly being subjected to brutalization and seeing, when they go to the Ape Sanctuary, it could be any institution which has bullying and mistreatment and some kind of person who is dominating and subjugating other people. So you will feel sympathy because you will see how this young mind is witnessing brutalization I guess.Do you think thatâs the key to this film, that each ape is really its own character and you are creating each one so its not just an obligatory group of apes?TN: Absolutely, nailed it, thatâs it. Thatâs the strength of this film I think is that itâs a very intelligent script and each of the characters in the film, the apes, are individuals. Theyâre unique and they come from a different background. Some have been tortured for years and some are ex-circus chimps and they all have a personality, and a trait and a strength that comes together and makes this team that is led by Caesar and once they are genetically enhanced, itâs almost as if this bright eyed innocence is changed and they start to become thinking and more human and you see that the more human they become, the less innocent they are. And itâs sad but youâre rooting for them at the same time but they are losing this innocence by becoming more human so thereâs a lot of messages in there about humanity and where weâre going.Did you watch videos of apes in captivity as well?TN: Yup. We watched a lot of gorilla videos with the signing and a lot of the just physical language of chimps that have been held in cages and sanctuaries basically. That have been experimented on for 20-30 years and then just cast away. Theyâre just basically prisoners. Theyâre messed up in the head, theyâre like deranged people that have been tortured their whole lives. Itâs like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, itâs what you were talking about, itâs like weâve got a bunch of really wacky individuals that are uniting in this film.-For more Rise of the Planet of the Apes coverage:Rise of the Planet of the Apes Set VisitJames Franco On-Set Interview Rise of the Planet of the ApesThe first trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes