The matter is - we are actors playing roles [in Planet Apes] and they happen to be in this instance apes but there's no difference. In the scenes that we're playing, if we were to block out the scenes as actors in costumes, it would be no different.

You don't go - oh this is a motion capture role, I'm going to employ this method of acting. We don't have anything to hide behind when we're doing this.

I'd already started directing short films when we were doing 'Lord of the Rings,' then videogame projects.

Playing a character in a video game is different to other performances because your character can't lead the audience of players in one direction.

That's what I think is the biggest challenge, is just being still and learning how to just be present in that stillness and not over do it, not over act.

I love the whole kind of notion of transformation for me is (what) excites me about not only acting, but storytelling. I love, I love that notion of a slightly larger-than-life artistic truth, you know, magnifying real emotional truth (or) finding something about human condition (which), you wouldn't necessarily think you can learn from characters such as Kong or Gollum, but actually they are, you know, these huge amplifications of a human psyche and I suppose those kind of roles have always attracted me definitely.

After 'Kong,' my knuckles have never recovered because I had to wear very heavy weights on my forearms and around my hips and ankles to get the sense of size and scale of the movement of the character You are telling your body that you are these things and that you're feeling these thoughts and that you're experiencing these experiences.