Owen Teague Went to ‘Ape School’ to Pull Off a Spectacular Transformation in ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’
variety.comOwen Teague tells me before assuming a similar pose, swinging his long arm up and brushing his palm against the bottom of his face. “There’s something very soft about the way that chimps move.
Their hands are just super loose.” He’s no zoologist, but Teague, the 25-year-old star of next month’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” knows a thing or two about animal behavior.
After landing the lead role of Noa, a chimpanzee living in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have surrendered their apex predator status, Teague spent days at a Florida ape sanctuary.
That’s where he got up close and personal with primates — well, except for the orangutans. “Man, they smell terrible,” he says. “Our evolutionary predecessors were stinky guys.” It’s a Wednesday morning in March, and we’re walking through the American Museum of Natural History, encircled by capuchin monkeys, lemurs, gorillas, even an orangutan hanging from a tree branch.
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