Paul Giamatti says playing an orangutang in Planet of the Apes was a dream job

Last Updated on January 12, 2024

“If you tell them I want to be a human, I’m gonna burn the agency.”

That was Paul Giamatti’s reaction when his agents took issue with his desire to be cast as an ape in Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes. In a recent THR roundtable, the actor, who’s considered an Oscar front-runner for his starring role in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, mentioned to the esteemed group, which consisted of Colman Domingo, Mark Ruffalo, Andrew Scott,  and Robert Downey Jr, that to him one of the biggest highlights of his career was playing the orangutang “human-trader” Limbo, in that often-maligned film. 

“If that had been it for me, I would have died happy. I couldn’t believe I would get to play a talking orangutang.” As cited above, he said his agents suggested he try to play a human instead, prompting his tongue-in-cheek threat.

Here’s the clip:

One thing that many of us love about Giamatti is his unabashed love of genre film. Recently, he mentioned wanting to make more horror movies, and if you look at his body of work, you’ll notice he often carves out a spot for genre films that  – typically – wouldn’t be able to afford an actor of his stature. That includes roles in the Álex de la Iglesia series 30 Coins, Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at the End, and many more. What’s likely happened to Giamatti is that he’s been stereotyped as a “prestige” player and probably doesn’t get offered the horror roles he covets.

It’s refreshing to see him take pride in a role such as the one he played in Planet of the Apes, an underrated movie with superb makeup effects. With mo-cap the new way to do ape characters (such as in the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), part of me misses the old days…

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen The Holdovers (which just hit Blu-ray), you should check it out. It was our pick for the best movie of the year, and it’s a legitimate gem.