ans have been waiting breathlessly for Peter Jackson's take on the 1933 classic since the moment the Oscar-winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy announced his intention to remake the film that spurred him to become a filmmaker. And the wait ended on Dec. 14, when Jackson's $207 million production rumbled into theaters nationwide. The story is the same: A film crew and actors venture off to Skull Island, beauty meets beast, and beast ultimately falls from atop the Empire State Building. But everything else about the remake is different: It's in color, it runs three hours and seven minutes, it's realized with CGI effects rather than stop-motion animation, and it stars A-list actors including Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll and Jack Black as Carl Denham.
Science Fiction Weekly recently sat down in New York City not just with Jackson, Watts, Brody and Black, but also with Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films and here plays both Kong and Lumpy, a member of the crew aboard the Venture, the ship that carries Darrow, Driscoll and Denham to their inevitable rendezvous with Kong.
Naomi Watts, you met with your predecessor, Fay Wray, shortly before she passed away. Did you discuss being remembered for one role?
Watts: No, no. We didn't talk about that. I was hoping that that night was going to be the first of more. It was for Peter and [co-writer/co-producer] Fran [Walsh], but sadly she passed a few months later and I wasn't in the country to meet her again, between that time and her death. You didn't want to overwhelm her with too many questions.
We heard you very nearly suffered a major injury during filming. What happened?
Watts: I fell down a hole backwards. It was a 5- or 6-foot drop. I was a little terrified because I was in this hole, ditch kind of thing, and my legs were in the air ... and I was physically jammed. I couldn't move right away, and I instantly thought, "Oh dear, I'm paralyzed or something really bad." And all I could see is everyone looking down at me going, "Oh my God, is she OK? Is she OK?" And I was going, "Ohhh, ohhh." And the medic came over and he was telling me not to move, and all I wanted to do was move. He was being careful to make sure I hadn't broken anything, but mostly what I could think about was, "My underwear is on display and everyone up there is looking at it." So I knew once I had that thought I must be OK. ... All the action stuff ... took about half the time [of] shooting the movie. And it had to happen in a consecutive stretch, so [that] made it very debilitating for me. It's the hardest thing, definitely, I've ever done in film. At times you felt really defeated by it, because you want to be able to do everything, but your body's not up for it. It frustrated [me] because my will was stronger than my physical ability. We stopped shooting for that day, and then I was fine. I attribute it to doing yoga. I'm very flexible, and my body literally went up into a very strange shape.
How did you go about preparing to react to Kong?
Watts: I love a good old Hitchcock movie. Fear is a great emotion to play. You can never imagine how furious these beasts are, but you don't want to rely on a bag of tricks. I think most of my performance is credited to Andy Serkis, I have to say. I'm reacting to his strength. He made me go there. He made me believe.
Is it true that you broke a glass in a hotel with your scream?
Watts: That's true, but one part you may not have heard about. Basically, I was asked to scream on a live TV show, and we were in a hotel on the balcony. And they had a hot light on the window that was going through to me on the balcony. So I think the combination of my scream and the heat from that lamp just created some weird vibration, and it literally cracked from the floor to the ceiling. I could not believe it. We were all like, "How did that happen?" I've done it many times since, and it's never worked again.
Would you scream for us now?
Watts: I'm literally on voice rest. I've done it on a few TV shows this week. I could, but I just don't want to lose my voice in the middle of a press junket.
Adrien Brody, would you say that Jack and Kong have a few things in common, like loneliness?
Brody: The parallels between Kong and Jack are really interesting. It kind of came to light more in seeing the film [recently] ... and it is also the type of role that I'm attracted to as an actor ... that it's the kind of guy who is thrust into certain circumstances beyond his control and out of his element and has to survive in those circumstances. You know, Kong does his best, but [his circumstances] were overwhelming. And I think that it was very important for Peter to make New York the jungle that was oppressive. As opposed to Kong rampaging a city, it was Kong victimized or Kong out of place, just like I would be, a screenwriter or a young man like myself, in the jungle trying to save my girlfriend [Darrow] from a giant gorilla. It's a very similar thing, but you have to rise to the occasion as best as possible and do what you can. So it's an interesting parallel; we're both kind of in the same predicament.
What did you make of working with Naomi Watts?
Brody: Naomi's lovely. She is obviously very talented. I think she's radiant in the film. I think there's a wonderful relationship with Kong. And with my character. And it's a hard thing to do, also, because there was very little time to set up a real connection for us. It's very important for the story, but you need to get to the heart of the matter, which is their relationship. My struggle, our struggle, has to be authentic. I think it worked. It was exciting to watch; it really was. So she was wonderful to work with.
The movie pokes some fun at Hollywood, at actors and writers. Driscoll has to work and sleep in a cage, for instance. What did you make of that bit of comedy in the film?
Brody: I think there are subtle and not-so-subtle digs at all people in the entertainment profession. Jack says, "I'm a producer. You can trust me." It's an interesting thing; I think some actors are more self-obsessed than others. It's a kind of unfortunate trap, because you go from obscurity, getting really no respect as an actor, and it's a very difficult thing to get past that, to start to be appreciated for your work. Some people don't get to that point, and maybe other things take the place of that, and you start feeling ... it's kind of exacerbated because you start to feel a little more important when people are asking you your opinion on world politics and "Why we are still in Iraq?" and you're going, "Why is my opinion any more valid than anybody else's? Because I'm famous now?" I just talked to Charlie Rose ... I'd spoken with him before the Academy Awards and he said, "After the Academy Awards, you were everywhere. Did you get swept up in it?" And I said, "I didn't get swept up in it at all. I actually clung to what was important to me, but it appeared that I was everywhere because they took my picture everywhere I went and published it." So every party and everything and ... It's Academy Award season. You go out and you do these things, but all of a sudden it looks like I'm living it up and I'm the man about town and I blew up. I only blew up because they were paying more attention to me. It's interesting. You have to have a lot of self-control, I think.
Jack Black, you seem to be channeling Orson Welles in Kong and, actually, right now. Did you? Are you?
Black: Here's the Orson Welles-ian thing that I don't have. Whatever he's doing, he's kind of cool. He's always kind of debonair and in control, which is not my style. But hopefully, yeah, I did channel [Welles] a little bit because I know that's what they had envisioned for the character. What was the other part?
In the film, you're running all over Skull Island, lugging an old movie camera. Did you really learn how to use one?
Black: Yeah. Luckily, Pete is a collector of many old, cool artifacts of Hollywood lore, and he had one of the cameras that they used to film some of King Kong with. And me and Colin [Hanks] and the other people who were on the film-within-the-film crew learned how to make movies with it and load it and shoot. We actually shot some really dumb movies on it in preparation. I think they might be on the DVD extras. They'd better be, because we put a lot of thought into those turdy little movies. One of them was called "The Chase." It was an homage to someone, to Buster Keaton or ... who was it? I don't remember.
Andy Serkis, tell us about how you researched gorillas in advance of playing Kong.
Serkis: Before I went to Rwanda, I spent a considerable amount of time at the London Zoo, working with gorillas there. I wanted to see what they were like in captivity and in the wild. Most in captivity are born and bred and are surrounded by human beings from day one. So they therefore reflect human behavior a lot more, and physically they're a lot quicker. I spent two months there, and hung out with these four gorillas, one of which was female, who I developed a particularly strong bond with. Her name's Zaire. She chose me, basically. She knocked on the glass and I duly went over, and she became very doe-eyed and very affectionate towards me, much to the chagrin of the other two females, and particularly the silverback male, who didn't know how to be an alpha male because he had been brought up in an Italian circus with chimps. He had to learn how to be a male. So all the females would just whip the piss out of him constantly. He would get very angry with me when I was with Zaire. He would rattle his cage and do these bluff charges at me. He would jump off the floor. I kept away from him. But Zaire, really ... if anyone has ever spent any time with apes, we come from 97 percent genetically similar [material] to apes, but it doesn't take much to form a connection to them. They're so similar to human beings, but I don't want to stigmatize them.
How did you end up with two roles?
Serkis: That was an additional thing that came much, much later. Peter said, "You're going to be here, [so] we'd like to offer you a part, a little role as the ship's cook. Something to give you while we're researching Kong so we can still have you on board." It was great.
Just as occurred with Gollum and The Lord of the Rings, people are going to mention you as a possible Oscar nominee. Can anyone ever convince the Academy that a motion-capture role requires as much of a genuine performance as a live-action role?
Serkis: I don't know. It's going to be a question they're going to have to face, because more films are using CG. Eventually someone will have to say, "We'll class it as an acting thing or a visual effects." It's like driving a Formula 1 racing car. I don't know how it works, but there are 150 people in the pit stop who make it work. But I decide how to turn the wheel ... Well, that's a crap analogy [laughs]. I don't know how to properly explain it, and that's part of the problem.
Peter Jackson, can you talk about seeing the original King Kong for the first time and describe its impact on you?
Jackson: I think I first saw the original Kong when I was 9, and it had such a profound effect on me as a 9-year-old. It made me want to make films. It affected me in a way that I can remember today the night that I saw it. The very next day I got my parents' Super 8 movie camera and started to do stop-motion animation with a clay dinosaur, a clay brontosaurus, actually, that I made when I started to do clay animation. And I've always wanted to remake Kong, because it's my favorite film and it's a wonderful story. And I, just as a film fan, and a King Kong fan, I really wanted to see it with the technology that we have now. Obviously, I saw it in '76 being remade, and I've been trying to remake it for about 10 years. I tried to do it before Lord of the Rings. I actually tried to make it when I was 12 on Super 8. So it's a long ambition of mine.
What can you tell us about your meetings with Fay Wray?
Jackson: I was actually trying to talk her into doing a cameo in the film because I really wanted her, as a King Kong fan. I thought it would be fantastic if she could appear in even one shot. So I asked her if she wanted to do a cameo. I was sort of nervous the first time I ever met her, and she said, "No, absolutely not." And she was very straightforward and blunt about that. We got on well, and the last thing that she said to me [following their last get-together], she sort of squeezed my hand ... I think she was kind of warming to me ... and she said, "Never say never." So I thought there was a chance that we might get to shoot a cameo with her, but, of course, she passed away soon after that. I think we saw her about three or four weeks before she died. But I'm really pleased that I met her because, obviously, as a lifelong King Kong fan I've always wanted to meet her. So I'm very, very grateful for this project and the time we got together.
Your version of King Kong runs three hours and seven minutes. Why so long?
Jackson: Three hours. Ah, the three-hour question. Yes, um, I know. I've got a problem. I feel like I have. No, we thought that movie would be about two hours, 10 minutes, two hours, 15 [minutes]. And after doing the Lord of the Rings films I really didn't feel that I wanted to make another three-hour film, because they're hard work. It gets to be very intense to have to do post-production on a film that long. And we thought with the original film being one hour, 40 [minutes] that we would be OK. But I don't know. We wrote the script. We shot the script. We cut the movie during post-production. There are lots of scenes that we filmed that aren't in the film. We certainly didn't include everything we shot. There's a lot left for a DVD if we wanted to do a DVD. And we just did the process we normally do. There's no rule book. There's nothing that you can follow other than your instincts. You edit the movie, you watch it, you edit some more, you watch it again. We trust our instincts. We nibble things down. We tighten them up, and you're always trying to get the film as short as you can, because there's obviously a lot of reason why people want it short. We got to the film that you saw last night and didn't really feel like we could trim it down any more. I mean, we could obviously shorten scenes, but we didn't want to do that. We felt like it was the movie we set out to make, more or less, and so that's just what it ended up being. And the way that a movie defines itself, there comes a point that you have to stop interfering and let the movie live and breathe and be what it is. And that's what we ended up doing.
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