| Issue Date: July 29, 2001
No stopping the big
The gorilla warfare in the new Planet of the Apes may get pretty hairy, but offscreen Michael Clarke Duncan is one very gentle giant.
By Mark Morrison
For a wiry kid growing up on the rough South Side of Chicago in the '60s and '70s, there was only one way to handle the local grammar school bully, Roscoe: Just fork over 50 cents and run. Michael Clarke Duncan remembers many confrontations with Roscoe. "Ain't no problem, man," he'd tell his aggressor. "Just don't fight me."
Sitting on the patio of the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, the 6-foot-5, 315-pound actor rolls with laughter as he recalls his submissive schoolboy behavior. A mountain of muscle in a white Michael Jordan logo tank top and black baseball cap, he's hardly someone you'd suspect would ever have had trouble defending himself. Which is one reason he is able to empathize with the current anti-bullying issue that has been growing since the Columbine killings and other outbreaks of violence that have affected schools from San Diego to Conyers, Ga. -- incidents now seen as possible retaliatory reactions by outcast or bullied students.
"It's unfortunate kids don't feel they have alternatives," Duncan says. "Parents need to come home and say, 'How was your day? You can talk to me.' My mother used to tell me, 'Everything you've been through, I've been through already.' I'd say, 'You don't understand. It's different now.' But she'd say, 'Ain't nothing you can tell me I don't understand.' And it was true."
Duncan is a big proponent of truth-telling. It's a year since the actor was Oscar-nominated for his stunningly honest portrayal of John Coffey in "The Green Mile", the gentle-giant role that showcased his size as well as his sensitivity. Now he stars in "Planet of the Apes", Tim Burton's special effects-laden "re-imagining" of the 1968 sci-fi classic with Mark Wahlberg in the stranded-American-pilot role previously played by Charlton Heston. While English actor Tim Roth plays the militaristic leader of the ape society, Gen. Thade, Duncan plays high-ranking silverback gorilla Attar, who is captain of the hunting party but torn by his sympathy for the supposedly sub-simian humans. Along with Helena Bonham Carter, they have been transformed into apes by makeup genius Rick Baker. But despite the convincing disguise, Duncan is, once again, the tough-looking guy with the soft spot.
Onscreen and off, his ability to project both outer and inner strength is Duncan's defining talent. "He has a good demeanor that doesn't have anything to do with build," says "Apes" co-heavy Roth. "He can be asleep and you still get drawn to him. The physical thing, you get over very quickly. He's a genuinely good soul." Until his mysterious-martyr role in "The Green Mile", he'd played mostly bouncers and bodyguards -- and worked as a bouncer and bodyguard (for Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J). But in "The Green Mile", Duncan (whose age is somewhere between 38 and 43, depending on whom you ask) tapped a reservoir of emotional riches, surprising everyone -- including himself.
"I had just come from doing "Armageddon", and I thought I really knew about acting," he recalls of his experience after playing the burly Bear in that 1998 summer blockbuster. "I had been hanging out with Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck -- you couldn't tell me nothing, man." Thanks to Willis, who personally called "Green Mile" director Frank Darabont on his behalf, Duncan won a screen test for the demanding role of Coffey, a mystical, childlike Death Row inmate -- and then prepped with acting coach Larry Moss (who also taught Oscar winner Hilary Swank).
The lessons didn't start smoothly. "I didn't know how to pull out from my heart what I needed to," Duncan says. "Then we put the scripts aside and started talking about my childhood, my mother, growing up. Next thing, that vulnerability is coming out and I didn't even know it." That's where Roscoe and other ghosts of Duncan's boyhood came in handy. After his father left home, Duncan and sister Judy were raised with a strong hand by their mom, Jean. "My mother taught me how to play baseball, how to ride a bike," he says. "She would come out and bat with us. I used to be embarrassed. I was like, 'Mama, nobody else's mother will do that.' I didn't realize nobody else's mother could do that."
At 4 feet 11 inches and barely 100 pounds, Jean Duncan also taught her son the importance of legible handwriting, pressed clothes, holding doors for ladies. She cautioned him about drugs and alcohol, pointing out neighborhood losers addicted to both. "I've never tasted a beer, smoked or gotten high. Cranberry juice is as crazy as it gets for me."
Jean taught him to deal with bullies, too. When Duncan ran away from a young tough named Kenny in junior high, "my mother was waiting on the porch when I got home. She says, 'Today you are going to learn to fight.' So I went back and Kenny and I locked horns. And I found out he wasn't that tough at all. I was choking him and he started crying. That changed everything for me, man."
Duncan's role-playing: This week's "Planet of the Apes" (left); "The Green Mile" (center); and with Willis and Affleck in "Armageddon" (right).
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Still tall and wiry through high school, Duncan bulked up at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, hitting 260 pounds his freshman year. But he didn't take workouts seriously until after he dropped out. "Now it's a part of life," he says of his daily regimen (30 minutes of treadmill, an hour of weights). But he's always known the difference between being macho and being a man. "It doesn't make you a man because you can bench-press 600 pounds. What makes you a man is fulfilling your dreams and living life to its fullest." That wasn't something he could accomplish through physical force. Though bodyguard work gave him access to early TV and film parts, Duncan quit the security business when one of his clients, rapper Biggie Smalls (a k a The Notorious B.I.G.), was gunned down in 1997. "Actually, me and a good friend switched jobs [that night]. He really wanted to be with Biggie Smalls, and I said, 'Who you with?' and he said, 'Babyface.' And I'm like, 'That's cool.' He called me the next day and said, 'Mike, it happened so quick. I didn't have time to do anything.' That was the last day I did bodyguard work."
Today Duncan's a star in his own right, celebrated by such famous friends as Willis (who also made sure they worked together in "Breakfast of Champions" and "The Whole Nine Yards"), "Yards" star Matthew Perry and WWF star The Rock, with whom he co-stars in the upcoming "The Scorpion King" (a prequel to "The Mummy" and this summer's smash "The Mummy Returns"). His private life also has picked up: He's found a steady girlfriend in Alicia Harrison, whom he met when she was a security guard on the set of "Armageddon".
But Duncan is never too far from his Chicago roots. Says Ben Affleck: "Mike has worked harder than anyone I know to get where he is today. No one deserves it more. He is a true modern Horatio Alger, and that gives him a real sense of self and a true confidence. I think people sense that in him and are drawn to him accordingly."
As for Duncan's imposing presence, Affleck quickly clarifies, "He is not a man to be trifled with, but he is no bully." Not even when he had the chance to get even with Roscoe. Duncan was a bouncer at a Chicago bar when his old nemesis walked in. "He was the same size as in grammar school," says the actor. "So I step on his heel to make him turn around. He looks at me and I say, 'Roscoe. Michael Clarke Duncan. Remember 50 cents a day so you wouldn't mess with me?'
"He's like, 'Oh, man, we was younger, man.' I say, 'Well, you probably owe me at least three grand. Where's my money?' He's like, 'Oh, c'mon, man. You ain't for real?' I just look at him and say, 'Where's my damn money?' He's getting shaky. And I play with him for five minutes. I say, 'Next time I see you, have my money, OK?' And it made me wonder: How could I have been afraid of this guy?" Duncan rolls with laughter again. Because real power, he knows, comes from using your wits, not your fists.
Mark Morrison is the West Coast editor of "In Style" magazine. He last interviewed actor Paul Hogan for USA WEEKEND Magazine.
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What I think of "Planet of the Apes"
By Jane Goodall
I haven't seen an advance screening of the new "Planet of the Apes", but I thought the old one was nothing less than terrific.
Surprised? Many people who know my work may be. But, after watching it, I felt that if filmgoers watched humans get treated the same way we treat apes -- torturing them and holding them in cages -- society might think twice about how cruel it can be to these wonderful creatures.
Still, it has always fascinated me to see an untrained chimp use a rich variety of ways to communicate. They call out when they are overcome with fear, anger, pain and sadness. One of my favorite calls is the "pant hoot," when they travel separately and "talk" to each other from deep in the jungle. You can hear the lovely sound carry from valley to valley.
These creatures are very much like humans. They laugh, hold hands, pat each other on the back, swagger and hug. They can learn sign language and use computers to communicate their needs.
They even have a sense of humor. In Woodside, Calif., the famous gorilla Koko is quite inventive.
She has learned all the colors and always identifies them correctly. When a researcher asked her one day what color a white cloth was, Koko signed in response that the cloth was red. The researcher repeated the question, but Koko continued to insist the cloth was red. Finally, to prove she was right, Koko picked up the white cloth and pointed out that it contained just the tiniest shred of red cloth on it. Then she signed: Red! Red! Red!
Given that these animals are capable of complex, rational thought and feelings, I welcome a film like "Planet of the Apes". Movie fans should see humans treated this way. Then, when they see apes in cramped cages -- or treated badly at circuses, where they're trained through fear-provoking techniques and made to wear demeaning, silly outfits -- they will realize these creatures should be allowed to live in a dignified, humane manner, as they do in the wild.
Jane Goodall, whose new book, "Beyond Innocence"
(Houghton Mifflin, $28), is a sequel to last year's "Africa in My Blood: An Autobiography in Letters", has spent more than four decades studying chimpanzees. Her non-profit Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research (www.janegoodall.org), based in Silver Spring, Md., seeks to raise awareness of all living creatures and conserve primate habitat.
Photography by Wayne Stambler
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