Peter Macon Opens Up About His Role as a Wise Orangutan in 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes'
Peter Macon’s latest blockbuster is about bridging the gap while living one’s purpose.
For over 50 years, the sci-fi realm has been fueled by the fantasy-driven narrative of an operational society cohabitating by human beings and apes. In the newest iteration of the franchise, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which hits theaters Friday (May 10), both species face an intense circumstance that exposes their vulnerabilities.
The film stars Macon, who admits that up until three years ago, he had experienced “spurts of downtime” in his career. In the $165 million budgeted film, Macon portrays Raka, an orangutan whose life experiences have resulted in a wealth of knowledge and wisdom that he shares with Noah, a younger ape whose community has been ravaged by an opposing force.
“I'm just a conduit for expanding our consciousness. That's really the way I think about it,” said Macon of his portrayal of Raka. “I like to do lots of research, reading, and imagery work to three-dimensionalize every character that I'm fortunate enough to inhabit.”
“It's almost approaching this character like you would build up a child or starting from the ground up filling its consciousness with things,” he continued. “I'm just drawing on my life experience to a character that is lending his philosophy to this bigger picture.”
While acknowledging Noah’s need for “an ally, a mentor, somebody to show him that the world is not what you think it is,” Macon draws a parallel from his own experiences in the entertainment industry that have been “incredibly isolating” at times, asserting that mentorship is “essential.”
“Friendships and relationships in this business are essential because it can be daunting and it's tricky business but you are the company you keep. So you keep the people around you that's gonna hold space for you and you hold space for them.”
Bet.com caught up with Macon while delving into the complexities of his character and how his portrayal widens the human gaze of the power of unlikely alliances.
Bet.com: Looking back on the early days of your career, how do you sum up your role as the voice of reason through Raka?
Peter Macon: My idea of success with my career is not only being able to choose the kinds of projects that I wanna do but being challenged. The more complex and challenging the assignment is, the more inspired I am to meet that goal of doing it in the most simplistic way where it's accessible. My job is to take the complexity of the human experience, whether through the lens of an alien or an orangutan, and help it somehow be digestible anthropologically into the zeitgeist of how we think about things and grow our consciousness. If you had told me two or three years ago that this is what I'll be doing, I'll be messed up. I don't want to know the future, but I was obsessed when it came across my desk.
Bet.com: In what ways did Raka challenge you as an actor?
Peter Macon: They asked me to play a talking orangutan accurately and believably.
My challenge then is to do that. Fortunately, we were able to have six weeks of ape school where we approached the work with our movements, and we took pictures of the skeletal structures of apes, bonobos, gorillas, chimpanzees, [and] human beings [and] we would compare them. We would be walking around the room trying to dehumanize ourselves to get into the mind space and the body space of these apes.
It was extraordinarily helpful and made my job much easier. I'd like to think that my past experiences with training and other roles have led me to be able to play this part.
Bet.com: In this film, Raka serves as an ally between apes and human beings. In your pursuit of Hollywood, which persons have been allies to you?
Peter Macon: One of the things I discovered while playing Raka was my father-in-law, who is an actor and a boxer. I met him when I was in a really bad space, and he took me under his wing.
Then, along the way, I met actors and comrades whom I still keep in contact with and whom I'll call when I'm feeling a little lost. Now, we're collaborating on our own project, and that is instrumental because it's empowering because while you're waiting for an opportunity, you gotta keep the fire alive and stay creative.
These are essential themes to Raka’s personality. Noah comes to Raka at a time when he's destitute and finds himself incredibly alone. So they need each other in this magnificent way, and it becomes a two-man wolf pack, a gorilla pack.
