What is it like to play King Ghidorah? Motion Capture actors “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” Alan Maxson, Jason Liles, and Richard Dorton tells us about the experience of making the movie of the summer. This three-man team brought one of our favorite Kaiju to life after spending months working together to give fans the visual experience in the tradition of Toho. Read about how paying three-headed dragon fooled a dog on set and other from-the-set stories. “it was like children playing monsters on the carpet when the parents are out of the house.” Jason Liles.
Jadeen Mercado: “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is the movie of the summer. It must have been amazing being the motion capture actors for King Ghidorah. Tell us a story from the set.
Alan Maxson: Amazing doesn’t even describe it. This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my career…so far! A fun story from set… let’s see. Oh, one of my favorite moments was when Mike had his dog on set. It was a big dog, he was very friendly and ran up to everyone to say hi. Until one scene when Richard Dorton, Jason Liles and I were all crawling on the floor snarling together (probably in a scene battling Godzilla) and Mike’s dog went crazy! He started barking at us and luckily someone had his leash in their hand because he was ready to charge! The moment Mike called “cut”, we stopped and his pup was right back to normal. But man that was some great validation for us all that we did a good job! (Laughs) We were so convincing as a three-headed dragon that we fooled the animal instincts of a dog. That was great fun.
Jason Liles: It was such an honor to have a hand in bringing these characters to life. First and foremost, I have to thank director Michael Dougherty for offering me the part of the middle head of King Ghidorah and for all the incredible work VFX supervisor Guillaume Rocheron, the VFX producers, and the entire visual effects team did. They deserve all of the credit with who knows how many hours of work. And there’s NO WAY I could have played Ghidorah without my brothers, Alan Maxson and Richard Dorton. Plus, you’ve got TJ being a beast as Godzilla? I felt so lucky. For us actors (TJ Storm as Godzilla, Alan Maxson as the right head, and Richard Dorton as the left head) it was like children playing monsters on the carpet when the parents are out of the house. We really had a blast channeling our inner monsters together playing these iconic characters. One day, Mike Dougherty brought one of his dogs to set. He was so excited and was running around giving everyone love, us included. Then, we started to capture a scene and as soon as we started snarling and becoming Ghidorah and Godzilla, Mike’s dog went berserk! They had to hold him back as he was barking like crazy. I guess we were really in it. Haha.
Richard Dorton: Thanks for reaching out Jadeen and your interest in what we do as actors working in performance and motion capture. I’ve been doing this for 19 years now with over 100 video game projects and movies, so I’ve seen and done some incredibly interesting stuff in the mocap suit.
One of the memorable moments that stand out for me was when Michael brought his dog to set one day. While we were shooting a scene and getting into character with a lot of growling and snarling and crawling around on the floor the dog went crazy! Barking and getting protective because we were freaking him out with our creation of Ghidorah!
On one hand, you’re loving it because it’s working and we’re being intimidated and scary, but on the other, you’re looking out the corner of your eye hoping he doesn’t break free and attack you! His dog was big and strong and definitely an alpha! But that also let us know we were on the right track with our performance.
JM: What was unique about playing the specific head you had to portray?
AM: Well my head, the right head, was the aggressive one. Richard (left head) was the curious one and Jason (center head) was the alpha. While Richard was busy sniffing and licking the humans, I was snapping and screaming at them. Jason would tell us what to do next and Richard would obey with no question. I would take a moment to decide for myself or maybe even have the attack in my mind already. Jason didn’t know this but in my character, I decided that the right head wished he was the Alpha. The right head eventually obeyed but was pissed that he had to listen to the center head. This was never a direction from Mike but it was a back-story that made sense to my motivation as “the angry head”.
JL: Mike gave us three distinct personalities. The middle head (me) was the big brother, the leader, and alpha of the heads. He’s in charge, is more aware, and the other two look to him and follow his lead. The right head (Alan Maxson) was more of a wild card, crazy, and absolutely ferocious. He has a real temper. The left head (Richard Dorton) is the most curious one. He’s a bit slower sometimes and might lick at something to smell it as opposed to the right head which would probably just eat or destroy it.
RD: We all three were given different personalities so that was very special in bringing our own head to life. Jason was the center head and the alpha, Alan was the right head and angry and I was the left head and curious. Being the curious one, I got the chance to react differently than them and not just attack right away. I like to say “I got to play with my food” before eating! The audience reaction to the left head is incredible and now with Michael making the joke that their names are Ichi, Ni and Kevin, The “Dang it Kevin” memes and the response has been fantastic! I also got the regeneration scene and got to grow my head back! When we were doing that scene and I was growing and slowly weaving and stretching to grow, I can hear Jason, licking and making mouth sounds as he’s supposed to be pulling the slime membrane off of me. I opened my eyes early and Michael screamed: “keep your eyes closed, Richard!” He didn’t want me opening my eyes until the head had fully grown back. I just wanted to see what the heck Jason was doing! Lol
JM: It seemed that each of Ghidorah’s heads had a very distinct personality, was that a decision made before filming or did it evolve into being?
AM: Mike decided these personalities before he officially cast us. I remember when I first met with him about the part, he said he wanted one of the heads to be extremely aggressive and full of rage. So I had time to practice my aggressive face in the mirror before we filmed (laughs).
JL: Definitely before filming. When Mike called me about the part, that was the first thing he mentioned: there were three actors he wanted for the three heads, all with different personalities, and he wanted me for the middle one
RD: Michael knew that right from the beginning and that was discussed with us right at our interviews. Giving them distinct and different personalities gave us each something unique and interesting to play and for the audience to watch. It gave us the freedom to explore and react differently to each scenario. It goes back to the dogs. Michael had three dogs of the same breed but each one was different and had different personalities. Just like people. Everyone is different in their own special and unique way
JM: How difficult was it to coordinate movements as three individuals knowing it had to play as a single entity?
AM: The three of us fell into it pretty quickly. Not only do all of us have experience doing performance capture but we all specialize in playing creatures and non-human characters. So we are used to moving and acting in ways that are not normal. So I don’t think we even had to think about how to do it.
JL: I feel like it was pretty easy actually. Richard and Alan are such pros. We tried having our ankles tied together and it just didn’t work. We ended up having Richard and Alan put their arms around my back and we really all moved together pretty well. Of course, there were the few takes where we would stumble over each other, but we were pretty much all on the same page. Couldn’t have done it without Richard and Alan being so awesome.
RD: We tried a variety of things in rehearsal to see what was organic and what would be effective to bring Ghidorah to life. We strapped our legs together. We strapped our waist together. We wore ankle weights to try and give it more weight. We tried my left hand being the left wing and Alan’s right being the right wing. In the end, we settled on something simple. As long as we kept our inside hand on Jason’s back and never released he would lead our movement forward and back. It gave us the freedom to stretch out as far as we could but always staying together. And since he is so tall, 6’9”, it was easy for him to represent the wings above our heads and he would naturally in sync with his own body to move them together. We three had constant contact and interaction to make sure we were working together at all times. But that also gave us the freedom to create our own inner dialogue, actions, and movement where needed.
JM: Do you have any other cool projects in the works that you’re allowed to tell us about?
AM: I have one really exciting one I’d love to talk about but I have to keep it a secret for a couple more months. But there is one project I can talk about called “Patina.” It’s a short film that I wrote and directed myself. It’s about a creepy robot that the lead characters bring home with the hopes it will do menial tasks around the house. In the end, it seems they get more than they bargained for. It should start playing in the film festival circuit in September and then be available on Amazon Prime shortly after.
Check out Alan here
JL: I just did a guest star role on this amazing Adult Swim show: “Dream Corp LLC.” It’s produced by John Krasinski, Stephen Merchant, and Kahlea Baldwin, directed by the incredible Daniel Stessen, and stars an amazing cast led by Jon Gries (Uncle Rico from “Napoleon Dynamite”). That will be my TV “human” debut and I can’t wait for that to release next year. I’ll be in the second episode of season three. What a cast and crew to work with there. There are a couple of other projects I’m working on, but nothing I can talk about yet. 🙂
Stay up to date with Jason here
RD: Right now, I’m directing a couple of video game projects and creating the mocap movement for them. That’s all I can say right now. Top secret stuff! I’ve also just completed some mocap/previs for a couple of movies that will be out next year and I stunt coordinated and played a few roles in the latest Borderlands 3 trailer for E3 that was just released. I’m teaching and training actors for my performance capture school, The Mocap Vaults which is an ongoing thing, so I’m surrounded by mocap 24/7. Thanks for reaching out and giving us so much love and support for “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and for the interest in mocap. This has been a blast and career highlight for us!
Follow Richard Dorton on Twitter and Instagram
His website is motioncaptureman.com
Mocap school – the Mocap Vaults – gomocap.com
Thanks so much to Alan, Jason, and Richard for their time and stay up to date with their projects!
Stay tuned for more on Nerd Alert News!
Written by Jadeen Mercado
