THE 'APES' OF ROTH THREE RESPECTED ACTORS DIVE UNDER LATEX MASKS TO MONKEY AROUND IN TIM BURTON'S NEW SCI-FI EPIC.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

It might have been the first day that Tim Roth tried (unsuccessfully) to cram a bite of salad into his ape mouth with the aid of chopsticks and a mirror or the afternoon that Michael Clarke Duncan arrived at the hospital in full gorilla makeup after badly spraining an ankle or the time Helena Bonham Carter's mother came to the set and immediately recognized her daughter, even though she was made up to look like a chimpanzee.

They've all got their monkey horror stories, each adamant that his or hers is the worst and the wildest. And yet, none of these noted actors would have traded in their monkey masks for the opportunity to play a mere human in Tim Burton's new ``reimagining'' of the 1968 sci-fi classic ``Planet of the Apes.''

``What's the point of being in 'Planet of the Apes' if you're going to play a human?'' asks Roth, repeating a rhetorical question he posed to his agent when first broached about the movie. ``All the fun comes from tapping into that animal thing.''

For five long months, this threesome tapped into that animal thing and more, typically arriving at the set in the wee hours of the morning for a three-hour makeup job that would involve special ape teeth and ears, lots of latex and the laborious process of applying tiny monkeylike hairs with tweezers, hair by hair by hair. The ape makeup would stay on for the remainder of the day, resulting in a surreal scene on the soundstage as ape actors would eat, smoke and read the newspaper in full costume.

``It was pretty weird at first,'' Burton told Entertainment Weekly. ``But you get used to it. In fact, it got to the point where it was more disturbing to see the actors without their makeup. I kind of preferred dealing with them as apes.''

In the film, Roth plays a belligerent chimpanzee general out to obliterate the humans; Duncan is his right-hand gorilla. Bonham Carter is a liberal chimp who believes people and apes should just get along. Here, we talk to the three actors - without their makeup - about the business of being a monkey.

Q: You all wanted to be apes. Looking back on it, did you have any idea what you were getting into?

BONHAM CARTER: None at all. I thought I was a bit of a stoic, but there were times when I just didn't think I could do it. Luckily you adapt and get better, but all that rubber can be hellish. You feel drained, deprived of oxygen. I was knackered (exhausted) by the end of the first day.

ROTH: It was just depressing sometimes. It probably had something to do with the sleep deprivation because we had to wake up so early. But you just bite the bullet and try to have fun. I thought of it as a big circus. We were the performing animals.

DUNCAN: I'm seeing the promotional things coming out right now and I'm actually nostalgic for my days as an ape. I've got my own ape action figure. The makeup was a small price to pay for something like that.

Q: You all had to go to ape school for six weeks to get in touch with your inner monkey. Who graduated and who failed?

BONHAM CARTER: I'm guilty; they sent me back. I couldn't quite get the breathing right. I was way too hyper, and I was told to calm down. But otherwise, I was pretty good. I developed incredibly strong quad muscles from walking like a chimp, which is basically walking as if you have a full diaper between your legs.

DUNCAN: Man, after an hour of that ape school, I was like, ``OK, I've got it.'' But they wanted us to come four days a week for three hours a day.

BONHAM CARTER: Michael was very good at dodging that.

ROTH: It was just a movement class really. We had to bring out the beast in our movements. Tim (Burton) and I originally thought about making my character a baboon or a mandrill, but it would have been too complicated for the makeup. Finally we decided on a chimpanzee so we could subvert their cutesy image.

Q: Because chimps can be pretty unpredictable, can't they?

ROTH: You see them looking at you all adorable like and you think, ``Oh, they love me.'' And they might just be thinking about using your head as food.

BONHAM CARTER: We had some chimps on the set and I loved them.

ROTH: I stayed away from them. They scared me.

BONHAM CARTER: I had to work with them, and it's true, you have no idea what they're thinking. One moment they could be loving you and the next they could

be tearing your arm off. They freaked out once. Mark (Wahlberg) handed me one of the chimps, and I put him down so he would walk, but he wanted to be picked up again and he just went crazy. You just have to reassure them. They express whatever they feel, much like a toddler would.

Q: What was the worst part about spending the day in a monkey mask?

ROTH: Eating was a lesson in frustration. Because of the makeup, your mouth isn't where you think it is. It's about an inch lower. You had to use mirrors and chopsticks, and I hated that so I refused to do it. I'd just snack, try to keep my energy up and wait until night when the makeup came off.

BONHAM CARTER: Tim had a major depression at mealtimes. I ate baby food and tiny stuff like rice. You didn't want to mess up your makeup because you didn't want to spend any more time in that chair.

DUNCAN: To people who don't know how to eat, it was a challenge. But to a big guy like me, it was no problem. Me and food have one of the best love affairs you'll ever see. So when it came time for lunch, I popped my teeth out, got my food and came back to the trailer and went to work.

BONHAM CARTER: Michael is always hungry! We'd be doing a scene and he'd say, ``I'm hungry, man. Get a move on!''

DUNCAN: I never used the chopsticks, and I never had any problem with food in my beard. My makeup guy was always asking if I ate. He couldn't tell because I was so clean.

Q: Any embarrassing moments?

BONHAM CARTER: I thought I would be wildly unrecognizable in my makeup; at least, I hoped I would be since I was playing a chimp. But my mother came on the set one day and picked me out straight away. She thought it looked exactly like me.

DUNCAN: I'd take that as a compliment. Besides, your mother knows you no matter what. She has seen you looking worse probably.

BONHAM CARTER: What's funny is that my friends think I look exactly like my mother.

DUNCAN: You want embarrassing? One day, I sprained my ankle real bad, and they took me to the emergency room in full ape makeup. So I'm being wheeled into the hospital in this big gorilla costume with full body armor and people are screaming. They think the circus is in town and something's happened to one of the animals. To break the ice, I said, ``Anyone see 'The Green Mile'? Well, that's me, John Coffey. Michael Clarke Duncan.'' They were OK after that. I signed some autographs.

Q: Did you learn to recognize people on the set in their ape makeup?

BONHAM CARTER: I was always the one smoking a cigarette, even though we were walking fire hazards with all the glue and rubber on our faces. That's the definition of an addict: When they warn you that you smoking might set you ablaze and you still light up.

ROTH: You got to know everybody after awhile, even the extras. You'd say, ``Hi, how are you doing? What's up today?'' ``Oh, I'm going to go shoot a battle scene. See you later.'' If you stepped back and looked at it, it was one of the weirdest experiences you could have as an actor. It was great.

BONHAM CARTER: I still know Tim Roth more as a chimp than I do as a human.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) A chimp off the old BLOCK

The simian stars of the new `Planet of the Apes' found it wasn't the typical costume drama

(2) Helena Bonham Carter, second from right, sympathizes with the humans in ``Planet of the Apes.'' Joining her, from left: Mark Wahlberg, Luke Eberl, Erick Avari, Evan Dexter Parke, Estella Warren, Paul Giamatti and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

(3 -- 4) Tim Roth, left, plays the chimp general, Thade, who is out to exterminate humans in director Tim Burton's ``Planet of the Apes.'' Michael Clarke Duncan, above, portrays Attar, Thade's trusted gorilla comrade.

(5) no caption (Michael Clarke Duncan dressed as Ape)