OLD YELLER
The call of the wild brings Tarzan back to the big screen. In The Legend of Tarzan, he’s living in Victorian London but returns to the jungle to save friends and family. Bob Thompson spoke to the director and actors, who revealed five things you should kn
1. It was love at first sight Director David Yates, who directed the final four Harry Potter pictures, was unexpectedly caught up in the script written by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer.
“It blew me away,” says the director, who says the story was “sexual and sensual” and “had a big beating heart.”
2. Telling a new tale Alexander Skarsgård was excited to play the iconic role but knew there would be challenges because the adventure “has been told over 200 times in over 100 years.”
What was his motivation? “I thought (the film), was more about returning to your roots than taming the beast,” he says of the new narrative.
3. The leave-or-remain dilemma The Tarzan yell is a trope. So is his loincloth. But in the end, the loincloth had to go, says Yates, who refers to it as archaic and unintentionally comic. Skarsgård says he ended up with a minisarong, which he thinks seems to be appropriate.
The yell, on the other hand, is heard off camera in The Legend of Tarzan and is an amplified amalgamation of Skarsgård’s yelp, an unnamed singer’s power notes, some animal growls and synthetic sonics.
Tarzan swings from vines, too. But the actor admits that an expert trapeze artist (Augusts Dakteris), does the most difficult movements with the actor’s image digitally added to the finished product.
“Should I take credit for this?” says Skarsgård. He decides against it. “I think Augusts deserves that.”
4. Working it out, Tarzan-style The last thing the actor wanted was his Tarzan to resemble a bodybuilder. “I wanted to look athletic,” he says.
He did three months of “bulking up” before he got to the London shoot but proceeded to refine his process with stretching exercises, yoga and Pilates, while consuming a strict daily diet during filming.
5. History mixes with fantasy Samuel L. Jackson portrays Tarzan ally and American George Washington Williams in the film. As in history and the movie’s plot, Williams was an opponent of Belgian King Leopold II’s plan to invade the Congo to control its wealth.
“I realized that I’m not just playing some adventure guy with a pair of big guns,” Jackson says.
“I’m playing a really important person who had a raison d’être for being there.”
The actor liked the fact that he was a bit of a rogue, too.
“He lied and gave himself titles that he didn’t have,” Jackson says.
“He was a black person trying to make it in that particular world, and he was able to do it through grit and guile.”