Actors Freya Allen and Owen Teague, stars of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, said if given the choice they are on “team ape” because they feel humans are destroying the planet.
During a presser for the film, Allen, who plays the lead human character “Mae,” and Teague, who supplies the voice for lead ape character “Noa,” speak about the meaning behind the film and how its message is important for us today. But for Allen, the film is proof that humanity needs to be taken down.
Noting that the conflict at the heart of the film is the inability of the human and ape characters to trust each other and work together, Allen admits that she sides with the apes and against humanity, and insists “I’m team ape.”
“Listen, I’m obviously — when I’m playing Mae, I’m team human, but I’m team ape — Freya’s team ape,” she said after discussing the conflicts in the film.
“I mean look at the planet — oh here we go,” she said realizing that she was straying into controversial territory with her anti-human comments. “Look at what the humans have done to the earth,” Teague interjected
“Well yeah, I dislike humans a lot,” Allen exclaimed.
“You know, there’s the odd one that’s like ‘no,’ I mean there are, you know, there are times where you see humans come together and you go ‘Oh, isn’t this lovely.’ And then there’s times you go ‘I absolutely hate us,'” she explained.
The film portrays humans as having “gone feral” and are living like animals while the apes — who have long since learned to speak — have become the more dominant species on a future earth. The plot follows Allen’s character as she works to help bring humans out of their lowly existence and back to supremacy.
The film debuted on May 2 and earned a domestic box office take of $58.5 million and $72.7 million overseas for a total of about $131 million. The film seems poised to earn back its $160 million budget through its first theatrical run.
Kingdom is the fourth film of the recent reboot of the original films and is being sold as the first film of another trilogy in the series. The original series was comprised of 5 films which debuted from 1968 to 1973. The popular property also spawned two TV series, one live action in 1974 and an animated series in 1975.
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