Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Star Reveals 'Bizarre' Method Acting On Set

Toby Kebbell, the actor who played rebel bonobo Koba in ‘Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’, says portraying an animal on screen requires so much concentration, many of the actors would simply stay in character between takes.

"You become an ape [on set]. We’d all be sitting around looking at our phones like this [mimics an ape with a smartphone]. Then you start getting off chairs using your knuckles, it’s truly bizarre."

"It’s hard to leave [behind]."

The film-makers used state of the art performance capture technology to allow Kebbell, Andy Serkis, and the other ape actors to bring the beasts to life. The results are startling, and the actor says the process is more like puppeteering than animation or acting.

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"What you’re doing really is puppeteering a digital model and if at any moment you fall out of your ape performance… the model looks wrong. It just didn’t work."

Kebbell was a newcomer to the franchise this time around and he admits he underestimated the difficulties he’d face bringing Koba to life.

"[Playing an ape was] vastly harder than I’d imagined. I thought it would be a bit of ‘ooga booga’ and they’ll do all the digital work and animate it, but it’s not that.

"The artists, they need the performance, they need the data. If that [performance] isn’t there and isn’t genuine… it just doesn’t work for them."

'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' is available now on Digital HD, Blu-ray and DVD.

Interviews by Elaine Lipworth.

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Image credits: 20th Century Fox