All eyes were on Alexander Skarsgard as the action adventure film “The Legend of Tarzan” held its world premier in Los Angeles this week. The latest in a long line of ape-man fantasy tales, the movie is set to become a big Hollywood blockbuster.
Tarzan is one of America’s classic fictional characters. Throughout the decades, he has become a staple of Hollywood — and there have been 52 authorized films and seven television series that have told the tales of the King of the Jungle.
Not all are seen in a positive light today and some have even given rise to charges of racism. But at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Legend of Tarzan” Monday, the leading actor Alexander Skarsgard says the take on Tarzan is very different this time round.
"The Legend of Tarzan" is the first big-budget studio attempt to take on the character in the modern CGI world.
“I was so surprised when I read the script because you don’t meet the Tarzan that you expect to meet. You made a very sophisticated British gentleman who is acclimated to life in London. He’s been there for 10 years. So I just love that the first time you see him he’s drinking tea with the prime minister and then he returns to the wild,” Skarsgard said.
“So it’s more about returning to your roots in a way. So it’s very different from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s novel or the old movie adaptations, which made this like a fresh take on a very iconic character.”
“The Legend of Tarzan” is the first big-budget studio attempt to take on the character in the modern CGI world.
As with Hollywood’s other recent adaptations of beloved tales stories with outmoded values, the “Tarzan” filmmakers did the delicate dance of trying to both preserve its original spirit, while also correcting or even discarding its problematic origins. Their approach was to infuse the story with historical perspectives, then bake it all into an action-adventure worthy of the superhero generation.
Margot Robbie plays Tarzan’s strong-willed wife, Jane. The Australian actress said she enjoyed staying fully clothed while Skarsgard took the brunt of film’s the nude scenes.
“It was great. I was really comfortable and I was wearing more clothes than him so I didn’t have to worry about dieting. It was wonderful,” Robbie said.
Though Tarzan was originally created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, Christoph Waltz said the new film is quite relevant for modern audiences.
“Well, you know, the world hasn’t changed in the past 100 years. There have been a lot of upheavals and occurrences, but basically it’s still about exploitation. It’s still about enslavement. It’s still about ruthless profit taking. It’s still about hiding, lying, cheating,” Waltz said.
“The Legend of Tarzan” opens in U.S. theaters July 1.
