At a press conference for "The Jacket," the line of questioning turned to Brody's upcoming starring role in the highly-anticipated "King Kong" movie from filmmaker Peter Jackson ("Lord of the Rings"). Brody plays Jack Driscoll, a World War I fighter pilot and Ann Darrow's (Naomi Watts) love interest.
Playing a guy locked away in a mental institute doesn't really have much to do with playing a man who must face down a giant ape. Asked how the two might compare, Brody said, "It’s very similar. No, look, 'King Kong' is really wonderful because it’s, for me, it’s a chance to not subject myself to the emotional torment, but now I am physically abused. I’m spending 11 hours on a harness shooting stunts and you’re doing these things that you can’t put somebody else in there, so I’m learning another aspect of filmmaking, which is very exciting...Physical pain is easier to deal with."
Peter Jackson used a familiar "Lord of the Rings" player to stand in for the hairy beast and provide motion capture and King Kong's facial movements. Even so, without an actual 25' tall ape to work with, the actors had to rely on their imagination when their characters interact with King Kong. How tough is it to imagine a giant ape? "That’s the real challenge. It's interesting. I mean, there is on one level, the challenge I having to experience things that don’t exist. But that’s also similar to what I’m doing having an out-of-body reaction in there in a drawer. You can do more to prepare for that, but at the same time, I do have a very vivid imagination. That’s part of what drew me to being an actor. I have a very vivid imagination and you take it seriously. It’s not a joke and it’s not like, 'Oh my God, there’s the monkey again!' It’s like what do you do when there is a...25 foot creature that sees you and senses you and smells you and doesn’t like you from before? What do you do? You smile or you run, and that’s the only choice. And you run for your life, and you run many times on many different colored greens and blue treadmills and do the best you can to believe.
But look, the beauty of it is that it’s character driven, including the depth that’s going into the creation of Kong. So it is going to be, in my opinion, the best combination of elements because it’s going to have Peter’s unbelievable team for effects, but also his own creative vision for something like that that he’s been so passionate about since he was 10. ...It’s very much similar to an independent movie even though it’s probably costing Universal a fortune. It’s a very similar process," said Brody.
Universal Pictures will release "King Kong" on December 14, 2005.
