Surviving the war

> Andy Serkis takes on the challenges of playing simian leader Caesar again in the latest Planet of the Apes film

THE SUCCESSFUL series of films that began with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes and 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes continues with War for the Planet of the Apes, which opens here on July 13.

In the wake of the viral outbreak that devastated much of the human population, the simian community has grown more powerful. But simmering tensions between the two species has begun erupting into conflict, and the ramifications will be dreadful for everyone …

Andy Serkis has a reputation for fantastic acting work – both using digital performance capture in films such as The Hobbit trilogy and Star Wars, and without it, from Avengers: Age of Ultron to Wild Bill and Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.

For the modern version of the Planet of the Apes franchise, he has originated and brought incredible depth to the main character, Caesar.

In a transcript provided by 20th Century Fox, Serkis talks about finding this latest stage of Caesar’s journey.

What’s new for you? And what’s new for Caesar? “Having ‘played’ him all the way from an infant to his boyhood, or in my case, apehood, the saga of Caesar continues to evolve. The problems that he faces in this movie are of a huge magnitude.

“The ape community that was established and beginning to thrive in Dawn has been ravaged.

“Caesar has taken the life of an ape, Koba, in the last film, which is something that he swore that he would never do, especially as part of his ape credo is, ‘ape shall not kill ape’.

“He finds himself now a commander, and a leader …. The apes are beginning to move out of Muir Woods and he is about to leave when this cataclysmic event happens that sends him off on a trajectory that he’s not expecting.

“This film is very much about struggling to retain the hold on his moral compass because the events that are so personal and painful to him make him go on a path of destruction.

“Through the help of the characters that he meets along the way, Caesar manages to pull out of that nose dive. The character journey in this one is an amazing one.”

Caesar meets a new ape character, played by Steve Zahn, who is a loner, living in an old ski lodge. “That’s right. What’s extraordinary is that what he represents is a character that is not of their tribe. We realise that the effects of the virus we now know have much further ranging effects and that’s a shock to the apes of Muir Woods.”

Does Caesar see something of a kindred spirit in this new character? “Yes, he’s seen terrible destruction and he’s been to a very dark places. Caesar views him as a sort of an oddball until this common ground is felt between them, which then unites them.

“Caesar then looks at him in a completely different light and he realises that he’s been through the same sorts of tragedy that Caesar himself has been through.”

Zahn is the new person in the performance capture gear. How has he been doing? “It’s like water off a duck’s back to him! He’s just such a brilliant actor.

“It’s nothing to do with anything apart from understanding your character and playing it and he’s terrific physically anyway.

“And he’s a great comedian, too. He’s perfectly suited for this role.”

Has the technology changed much from the last film? “The process is much more streamlined. We come in the mornings, we go and we get our gear on, which is very much streamlined. The facial cameras, they’ve evolved.

“But in essence, it’s the big leap from Rise when we started to shoot on location. That was significant.

“When you think about it, Rise was quite an intimate piece. It was in a domestic situation and then a slightly bigger family in the atrium with all of the other apes.

“Then Dawn grew, and built on that to a larger community.

“And now we’re in this situation where it’s a huge landscape and epic.”

How was it like working with Matt Reeves as director again? “Matt knows the story like the back of his hand. He writes with Mark Bomback and he knows them.

“Not only that, he’s quite a good actor himself in the sense that when he writes, he writes from the inside.

“When it comes to shoot as well, it’s very subtle in the direction that he gives, and he creates space around the actors, which on films of this scale, you don’t always get.

“I’m so excited to be working with him again. I love his company and love his energy and he really is the real deal.” Christmas,