|
BY
DANIEL BAIG | Recently, I had the chance to interview the stars
and personnel involved in Fox's remake of Planet of the Apes. Here
are my interviews with Richard Zanuck (producer), Paul Giamatti,
and Mark Wahlberg:
Richard
Zanuck in 1968 was the president of production at Twentieth
Century Fox, and thus was responsible for greenlighting the original
Planet of the Apes (and the first sequel). He later left
the studio and with partner David Brown started the independent
production company The Zanuck/Brown Co. Just some of their films:
Jaws, The Sting, The Verdict, and Cocoon.
Along with his wife Lili, Zanuck also produced Driving Miss Daisy,
Rush (which she directed), and the upcoming The Road to
Perdition (Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law!) and Reign
of Fire (dragons!!!)
And
now he’s produced the 2001 Planet of the Apes. He’s
an affable, white haired, casual guy who seemed to genuinely enjoy
talking with reporters. As he joked when he entered the room, "I’m
here to provide some historical perspective."
Some
interesting things the visiting historian shared with us:
For
the original 1968 Planet, Edward G. Robinson had been cast
as Dr. Zaius. However, after the makeup tests were done, Robinson
came to Zanuck’s office and told him, "Look, I think you really
got something here, but I’m too old. I can’t breathe behind
this makeup, and I have to bow out." And so the role went to Maurice
Evans.
Richard
contrasted today’s audience and films with those of the 60’s.
"Today’s audience are much more entertainment oriented. I’m
not so sure quite frankly whether [the original Planet] with
all its thought provoking ideas, would be successful today."
He
went on to say that he thought in this new Apes ideas were
no longer in the forefront, so that "older audiences" could pick
up on the "nuances added to it" if they cared to, while "younger
audiences will just go and enjoy the entertainment value of it.
. . . Tim and I decided very early on that . . . the audiences of
today, and this can either be a wonderful thing to think about or
can be somewhat discouraging for filmmakers -- we’ve weaned
an audience around the world that really is an escapist audience.
They don’t want to go in there and try and solve the world’s
problems . . . they really don’t want to have to delve into,
you know, current issues . . . we didn’t want to have to make
a picture that was going to make a lot of statements. We wanted
it to be entertaining, fun, and sure, reflect some of our present
society . . . The world has changed; the marketplace has changed."
Richard
told us that the internet rumor of five endings being shot by Tim
Burton was totally untrue. Of the ending, he said, "It’s not
to be examined under a microscope . . . it’s to be thought
about and enjoyed and not given too much thought afterwards." He
DID point out that this ending sets up a sequel! "I think the answers
[sic] that that ending provokes will be answered in another installment.
If there isn’t another installment, you’ll just have to
try to figure out what Mr. Burton [intended]."
An
interesting tale about Charlton Heston, the first Apes sequel,
and the new remake: "Thirty years ago . . . sequels were not in
vogue at that time at all, nobody thought of making sequels, but
we did. We thought, ‘Gee, we left him on the beach and everything
and the picture’s a surprise hit. We can continue this story
somehow.’ So I called up Heston, we made a breakfast date,
and I said, ‘Chuck, we want to make another one.’ [Heston
responded] ‘That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.’"
But, "at the end of the breakfast, after badgering him, he
said, ‘Ok, I’ll do it, but only on two conditions: One,
six days is all I want to work. I’m only going to work six
days on this . . . and number two, you have to kill me, because
I never want to have this kind of breakfast again.’ And so
we killed him. . . Thirty years later, and I hadn’t seen Chuck,
maybe once or twice at a function, through all those years. I called
him up for breakfast, and we met at the same place. By total coincidence
they sat us at the same booth at the Polo Lounge and I said to him,
‘You must know why after all these years I’m asking you
to breakfast,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a good
idea.’" And so Heston ended up doing a cameo as an ape.
One
final amusing thing from our time with Richard: His cell phone went
off in the middle of the interview session. The ring tone? A very
appropriate (see his resume above) The Entertainer.
Paul
Giamatti made a big impact as "Pig Vomit" in Private Parts,
the Howard Stern movie. He was also featured in Saving Private
Ryan. His father was President of Yale University, which Paul
attended both for undergrad and grad school (Drama), and later on
served as Commissioner of Baseball until his death.
Paul
told us that originally his character was supposed to be "an albino
gorilla, but what it looked like was a really, really old gorilla,
so they bagged that idea." He really wanted to be a gorilla, though.
"I was very happy to play an orangutan [what he ended up playing],
but I was always sorta disappointed I didn’t get to play a
gorilla . . . . I think ultimately they picked the right kind of
ape for me to be and I think they also wanted me to be one of the
only orangutans too so I seemed like more of an outsider
because I was a different kind of ape than everybody else, which
is why they wanted an albino. They had a bunch of different ideas.
They actually thought of having me be half-human at one point."
I
told Paul that I had noticed a lot of parallels between his slavetrader
character in Apes and Peter Ustinov’s slavetrader in
Spartacus. "Sure. Yep. That was the first thing . . . yeah,
definitely. That was the idea . . . it was an echo of that kind
of thing. Definitely."
He
told us that the most difficult thing about the makeup was the teeth.
"But once you got the hang of working with it technically, overenunciating
so the teeth wouldn’t bother you and things like that, it was
easy after that."
I
asked him if he went to zoos to observe orangutans. "I went to the
L.A. Zoo to watch some of them, but they don’t do a hell of
a lot. They’re very lazy monkeys."
Another
question of mine which Paul answered affirmatively was whether his
contract committed him to a sequel. He said he’d "be happy
to do it again, cause I’d like to do more physical stuff that
I didn’t get to do in this movie. . . I’d like to hang
from stuff more."
I
asked him if when he walks down the street he still gets people
calling out to him, "Hey, Pig Vomit!" "Not so much. Not so much
as you’d think. People recognize me, but they don’t know
why. That’s what happens more often. People recognize me, and
they try to figure out why they know me, so it’s kind
of fun for me to screw around with them . . . . I just say ‘I
don’t know why you know me, I don’t know.’ And then
we try to figure out if I know their brother-in-law, and we sit
around for awhile doing that, and then we part ways, and they never
figure out where they know me from."
Mark
Wahlberg clearly buffed up again for Planet of the Apes.
Gone is the slender look of Boogie Nights. For the interviews
he wore a tight long sleeve black shirt which highlighted his impressive
upper arms, and the tattoo which runs across his upper chest.
One
of the most interesting things Mark told us was that, unlike EVERYBODY
else we spoke to that day, he was NOT a fan of the original movie.
He spoke of watching it on TV with his father at age 10, and saying,
"Can we put on Shane again?"
Mark
also told us that Richard Zanuck "is the coolest guy that I have
ever met. After working with Richard Zanuck . . . I feel like I’m
part of the movie business."
He
laughed when said it struck me as rather speciest [my word] when
at the end of the film he kisses the human Estella Warren plays
for much longer than Helena Bonham Carter’s ape. He defended
the discrepancy thusly: "I kissed Helena. Estella kissed me. She
grabs my face and pulls me towards her. I move into Helena. I initiate
that kiss."
Mark
also discussed why it was easier for Tim Burton to direct him than
the other actors on the project. "I didn’t ask questions. Everybody
else was like, ‘What is this exactly?’ for every little
thing, every little detail. Tim was like, ‘Just fuckin’,
just fucking say the line. Fucking three words, SAY IT!’ The
only time I had a hard time was, what was it? ‘Never send a
monkey to do a man’s job.’ [a line his character delivers
early in the film at a dramatic moment]. I was like, ‘Uggh!
I really have to fucking say this Tim? Please, please let me say
something else? Can someone else say it?’"
I
asked Mark if he was thinking at all about returning to music. He
said no, and told a funny anecdote to illustrate his lack of interest
in the idea. "I saw Puff Daddy in a restaurant. He’s like [imitating
a very eager Puff Daddy] ‘I know you want to do music again.’
I go, ‘No, I don’t!’ He’s like ‘You
think about it all the time. I can see it in your eyes right now!’
I was like, ‘cause we’re listening to music. I like
music, I can’t bob my head to the music? I have to get up and
pull my pants down and start rapping?’"
Mark signed my copy of the recent issue of Premiere which
features him and Helena Bonham Carter on its cover, her dressed
in her ape makeup and holding a human baby and him (human) holding
a chimpanzee. As he signed, he told me that during the session "that
chimp was just totally smacking around that baby!"
|
