Alexander Skarsgard, Margot Robbie, David Yates and David Barron talk THE LEGEND OF TARZAN at the London Footage Presentation
It has been years since the man once known as Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) left the jungles of Africa behind for a gentrified life as John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke, with his beloved wife, Jane (Margot Robbie) at his side. Now, he has been invited back to the Congo to serve as a trade emissary of Parliament, unaware that he is a pawn in a deadly convergence of greed and revenge, masterminded by the Belgian, Captain Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz). But those behind the murderous plot have no idea what they are about to unleash.
The Fan Carpet’s Jessen Aroonachellum in association with Acting Hour was in attendance at a special footage presentation which was attended by Margot Robbie, Alexander Skarsgard, David Barron and prolific Director David Yates...
Did you have any History with the character of Tarzan?
David Yates (Director): I use to watch the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan films in my childhood. They were always charming. They were always small budgets and filmed in a studio somewhere. Just after Potter, I was looking at scripts and seeing so many things that felt familiar in a way. Things blowing up, I’ve seen before, sci-fi etc. I saw the Tarzan script and wasn't interested then I read it. It was written by Adam Cozad and Greg Brewer had also contributed to that script and was sent to me by a lovely Producer named Jerry Weintraub, who’s a legendary Hollywood Producer, a wonderful, larger than life human being, who has worked on it for 10 years and was eventually able to pull the script together, and I just fell in love with it.
The script was very romantic and epic and had some old fashion sensibilities but had themes that still felt connected to now and and very present to now, in terms of how we value our environment and what we are doing to the animal species around us. It had politics in it and made me smile with the humour to it. The script has a lot of colour to it and the other scripts I was reading had only had one colour to them. It felt like a full meal and so I couldn’t resist it really. Evan though on the surface it felt like an anachronistic subject, it is far from that once you start to immerse yourself in the pages of the film. I was very surprised by it, I love being surprised.
Margot, Jane is a wonderful character due to her fierceness and love and admiration for her husband and she still very independent. What did you draw on to bring her to life?
Margot Robbie (Jane): She is fiery independent but incredibly in love with her husband, so they are kind of codependent in that way. I see her as being emotional strong. I felt they needed to be strong independent of each other, otherwise why would they be together. In terms of what I drew on, it was more the circumstances and understanding the stakes in the film, from 10 minutes in the stakes are high. It was a life or death thing and when it was a person you loved it's always high. Funnily enough I always thought it was his life was at stake rather than the other way around but I saw the film and realised it wasn't... When I was reading the script I was taken by the grand scale of it, and even on the page it just felt so epic and romantic. Yeah, everything about it was rich.
I spent a lot time in the film with Christoph Waltz (Leon Rom, the villain of the film) and it was great working with him as he would always do something different; very unpredictable. David really allowed us to take those moments and spend as much time as possible working on our dynamic as well as Alexander (Skarsgard) and mine. You also see the bromance between Samuel L. Jackson and Alexander. All the relationships are equally as important.
What was the mental preparation for the film?
Alexander Skarsgard: I thought it was an interesting journey and I agree with what David said when I was sent the script, it’s such an iconic character; and it’s a story that has been told hundreds of times. There are 12-15 novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and various iterations in the movies.
I first read the script and the first page is not Tarzan but Lord John Clayton, Lord of Greystoke drinking tea with the Prime Minster in a 3-peice suit as perfect Victorian gentleman. We don’t open the film in the jungle but with him and Jane being married and living in London for a decade. So his character arc is opposite to the early films where you are taming the beast. He is already civilised and living in London. He has a home as he feels objurgated to be there as his parents are gone, and it’s his responsibility to take over Greystoke Manor and be there with his lovely wife, who he is very much in love with, but it not his real home, and something is missing and in terms of their relationship, Jane can feel that, and he needs her, they need each other, she is not a damsel in distress and it is not about him saving her, he’s not complete without her. It’s not about taming the beast, it’s about keeping the beast within and we talked about letting the beast come out and something we can all relate to being human and having those primal urges. Primal instincts.
We had the choreographer Wayne McGregor, who is probably the greatest choreographer in the world, it was such a treat to have him, helping me get the physicality for Tarzan. I loved playing those moments where he’s very button up play the English Lord where deep down he isn’t. Where he is in the jungle he learns to adapt and when he came to London, he learned to play the part of being a Lord. However, still has those moment where he’s still is animalistic.
The locations are amazing, where was it filmed?
Alexander: It was filmed in Watford...
David Barron (Producer): Yeah, we film the principal photography in Leavesden Studios, then we got our D.O.P to film all the aerial shots in Gabon in Africa and with today’s technology we can put both together.
Josh Pontin: I’ve got a slightly unusual CV, I went to I’ve with sixteen Gorillas in 2001 and then we created a network of thirteen national parks across Gabon, and then I happen to be a specialist on nineteenth century central African history, my CV is usually pretty useless, until it lands on the lap of David Yates, who is making this version of Tarzan. It was a joy to be involved, as David Barron said it was mainly shot in Watford; there are too many mosquitoes and not enough Cappuccino in Gabon to take a crew of a thousand and all this technology, so indeed it was shot in Watford.
In creating the national parks in Gabon, I had had the pleasure of roaming around this place for the last fifteen years, to find these amazing, natural landscapes.
What Alexander jumps off is an inselberg, a granite out crop, which you’d probably recognise as the sugar loaf in Rio and indeed when Brazil and Central Africa were together that was the same landmass.
When I took David flying around, he spent four days like a kid in a candy shop with his nose pressed to the helicopter window, seeing landscapes that Hollywood had never seen, natural history crews have been in there, so it was a total pleasure.
So coming back and David going the extra mile to give a big Hollywood blockbuster this authenticity to show African culture, so he forced the extras to spend weeks with me and various other people to go through this history, giving it proper context. There are limitations of course to a big Hollywood epic of this size, but he did everything he could to put a new lens on it, and that should be celebrated.
Alex, I was just wondering where did you get your yell from as JohnnyWeismuller’s is so famous. Were you conscious of not copying him?
Alexander: We tried lots of things like yodelling but David Yates wasn’t a fan of that. So, it was a lot of trial and error. We play around it. I think you (David) helped me out a bit to make it more primal and animalistic.
David: It was partly Alex, partly a voice expert, it’s a combination of things.
Where you disappointed to not be filming in the Jungle?
Alexander: Well, Watford was pretty nice.
Margot: I was pretty disappointed but I got to stay in London, which I was pretty stoked about.
Alexander: I was trying to go to Gabon but there was no time; I just wrapped True Blood in L.A. and six hours later I was on plane to London. What really helped, was when I heard we were shooting mostly in a studio in the UK, I was concerned with it being just green screen but it was incredible when I got there they had two huge hangers looking like a jungle. The backlot had sets like the boat and a town.
Margot: It did look, smell and felt like a jungle when you got on set.
The Legend of Tarzan Film Page
THE LEGEND OF TARZAN IS IN CINEMAS TODAY
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