Some mild stuff ahead.
Understand if you want to wait until youve seen the film before you read this interview.
He said, This is what Im thinking about for the next movie.
He told me the story of the movie in real time, and it was just mind-blowing.
Pretty much what he described is the movie, so its phenomenal.
Hes so on top of it, knew what he wanted to do.
Were you apprehensive about that?
No, because Im quite an outdoors-y sort of person.
I climb and all that sort of stuff.
I love adventurous shooting, and riding horses across that terrain and everything.
I remember it being a tough shoot in that respect, actually.
When youre in that mode for such a long time.
But what Matts done is a huge feat.
The scope and scale, but also the detail and emotional journey of Caesar.
The scenes between you and Bad Ape and the girl and Maurice are amazing.
And the Colonel as well.
Woody [Harrelsons] character is fantastic.
This search for emotionality in all the characters, and finding a balance between the humans and the apes.
He never wanted to make the apes good and the humans bad; its very well judged.
Theyre drawn to each other in some way.
Thats the drama in that scene, isnt it.
Yeah, and strangely, it helps Caesar come back to who he is.
To his empathetic character.
TheWar For The Planet Of The Apesis also Caesars personal war, and the conflict within.
Its true, its true.
The scenes where apes are being beaten or really badly treated.
Theyre hard to work in a way, arent they?
And thats the genius of this metaphor, and whyPlanet Of The Apesas an idea has lingered five decades.
Hes out of control.
Its that tension which makes for an interesting character.
A couple of years ago I spoke to Terry Notary and Karin Konoval, and they were lovely.
Karin Konoval was talking about painting with orangutans.
You have to be open, you have to put yourself out there.
And when you do that, you look at people in a different way.
Weve all had to do it, so its a great leveler in many ways.
Weve all become great friends, all of us.
And Matt, too, actually Matts a really close friend of mine.
You know, you dont often get that opportunity.
You cant be vain and do this.
You get your hands dirty playing these roles, for sure.
Thats whats liberating and exposing.
The joy and the combination of those things is what makes it thrilling!
More generally, where do you see performance capture going?
Because youve got your company [Imaginarium], too.
What is it going to look like?
We know that people stream films and TV, and watch Netflix, people go to watch tentpole movies.
Smaller movies are on the wane, in a way.
Videogames are huge, but also a huge part of storytelling at the moment.
And then you have Secret Cinema, with a cinema event with a theatrical event tied in with that.
Can we make aPlanet Of The Apesentirely as a virtual reality world?
Or is there some other way of combining all the storytelling media to create something new?
Thats one of the quests that we have as a company.
And people, through videogames, theyre completely versed in coming something other through an avatar.
So thats what I mean if theres a way of doing that…
I mean, everybodys circling around those ideas, I think, but thats something were particularly interested in.
Well, you know.
At the moment, theres a huge appetite for real-life stories, say.
You have Chadwick Boseman playing James Brown, or I played Ian Dury.
Gary Oldmans playing Winston Churchill inThe Darkest Hour,for instance.
Is there any difference?
Obviously, if its used in a negative way, then its probably not a good idea.
But thats down to filmmakers and storytellers.
Thats a really interesting way of putting it.
Well, when we started working on Gollum, it was pure motion-capture.
Then that changed when we were doingKing Kong,which was using facial capture for the first time.
Because youre directly driving a digital mask.
You know, all of that.
He wanted it to be as real as possible.
I mean, Matt Reeves was taking about David Lean and Kurosawa as influences.
Youre making a film based on [George Orwells]Animal Farm is that right?
Yeah, thats right.
Were developing that at the Imaginarium.
Really being able to see their faces.
And boy, there couldnt be a better time to makeAnimal Farm!
Well, no, exactly.
And thats great thing about it.
There are parallels withPlanet Of The Apes, too, with the allegorical aspects of it.
Exactly, 100 percent.
Again, with satire, you have to be so specific- its notSaturday Night Live,you know.
It cant be so topical that its out of date its got to have a classic arc to it.
It has to be its own thing, rather than being about Donald Trump or Theresa May.
Right, it has to be timeless.
So from your perspective, where couldPlanet Of The Apesgo next?
Not necessarily, no.
There are so many places it could go.
I think thats the idea, to somehow arrive back at 1968, but without remaking that movie.
How are you feeling aboutThe Jungle Book,because thats been a long road, hasnt it?
Its been a long, long project.
And in fact, Ive directed another movie in between…
ThatsBreathe, isnt it.
Which is coming out this October, with Andrew Garfield and Clare Foy.
Its about a man surviving outside the hospital system with a huge polio disability through her love, basically.
He was the first person to live outside hospital with a respirator.
Its an amazing story.
But that happened in the middle of what will be the five year process of makingThe Jungle Book!
Because, of course the Disney one came along and we wanted to create the space between the two.
Crucially, its performance-captured, so its a drama.
Its a drama that has spectacle, but its led dramatically in a very similar way thatApesis.
He knows that to some degree I understand performance from both sides.
I love helping actors elicit performances.
Its really rewarding as rewarding as acting.
I love the process of directing.
Andy Serkis, thank you very much.
War For The Planet Of The Apesis out in UK cinemas on the 11th July.
