The man who helps Hollywood stars embrace their inner ape

Terry Notary. Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP Photo

Terry Notary is Hollywood’s human shape-shifter. In the blink of an eye he can become an elf, an ape or almost any other moving creature.

An expert in motion-capture performance, he specialises in bringing non-human characters to life on screen. He's played goblins in The Hobbit, a Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas and a winged, dragon-like banshee in Avatar.

In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Notary plays more than 100 primates. He also taught the film's stars and stuntmen how to find their simian side.

Notary aspired to compete in the Olympics while training as a gymnast at UCLA but then found work with Cirque du Soleil after graduating with a theatre degree. He came to Hollywood as a stuntman and from there became a sought-after movement coach for motion-capture shots, where actors are wired and their movements captured electronically for the building of computer-generated imagery.

He created the lithe, long-limbed motions of the Na'vi in Avatar, taught the Silver Surfer how to ride in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer and went ape in three films, starting with Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes in 2001. (He performed stunts in all as well.)

“I’m a good observer of movement and behaviour,” the 45-year-old says. “That’s what my talent is, I think.”

He begins with an image of the character. For imaginary creatures, he might picture objects from nature. When conceptualising the Na’vi, for example, he thought of reeds swaying underwater, gracefully at ease with the energy around them. For a goblin, he thought of a piece of crumpled tin foil.

To develop ape expertise, Notary hung out with a couple of chimps and spent a lot of time watching primates at the zoo, videotaping and studying their behaviour.

Notary had six weeks to put the actors and stuntmen starring in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes through his ape training. The first step? Shed preconceptions and human conditioning and just "be". "It's not about doing anything, it's about undoing," he says. "If you can start to get back to the base, neutral animal that we are, you're an ape."

Letting go of human tendencies can take weeks, but once the actors get it, “it’s magic”.