Owen Teague Went to ‘Ape School’ to Pull Off a Spectacular Transformation in ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’
18.04.2024 - 15:47
/ variety.com
Owen Teague tells me before assuming a similar pose, swinging his long arm up and brushing his palm against the bottom of his face. “There’s something very soft about the way that chimps move. Their hands are just super loose.” He’s no zoologist, but Teague, the 25-year-old star of next month’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” knows a thing or two about animal behavior.
After landing the lead role of Noa, a chimpanzee living in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have surrendered their apex predator status, Teague spent days at a Florida ape sanctuary. That’s where he got up close and personal with primates — well, except for the orangutans. “Man, they smell terrible,” he says.
“Our evolutionary predecessors were stinky guys.” It’s a Wednesday morning in March, and we’re walking through the American Museum of Natural History, encircled by capuchin monkeys, lemurs, gorillas, even an orangutan hanging from a tree branch. Teague doesn’t need to worry about any nose-curling odors. The animals on display in the Hall of Primates are models or long-dead specimens, but their proximity is reminding Teague of the lengths he went to to transform himself into a chimp.
That metamorphosis required a six-week stint in “ape school,” where he and the rest of the film’s cast worked with a movement teacher to get in touch with their simian sides. “They’re very economical,” Teague says, hunching his shoulders and assuming the posture of a chimp. “You don’t see them sit down and then shift around to get comfy.
They plant themselves in the exact right place and stay there. They’re so physically present. Humans are always kind of shifting our feet and doing stuff with our hands.” And because apes also walk around on their knuckles, the
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