Monkeying around on a movie set can get you into a heap of trouble. At a grand Oak Bay heritage home posing as a colonial house in New Jersey, however, monkey business was encouraged during filming for Monkey Up.
It wasn’t surprising since the star is one of Hollywood’s most famous and highest-paid animals — Crystal, the Capuchin monkey of Night at the Museum and The Hangover II fame.
In the new family-friendly comedy from Robert Vince, best known for his Air Bud movie franchise, the plucky primate who first stole our hearts in George of the Jungle plays Monty, the mischievous spokesperson for the energy drink of the title. After learning the corporation’s ruthless owner Stan, played by John Ratzenberg, best known as Cliff in Cheers, actually owns him, Monty flees to chase his dreams of movie stardom.
Monty leaves behind his manager, Desmond, played by Danny Woodburn, whose roles include playing Mickey Abbott on Seinfeld. The talking monkey is taken in by the Andrews family after he’s discovered hiding out at Toy Kingdom, a fabled New York toy store, by Sophie (Kayden Magnuson), an aspiring eight-year-old gymnast.
Mayhem ensues as Monty helps Sophie’s dad, Jim (Jonathan Mangum), a struggling writer, adapt his novel into a screenplay and her brother Ethan (Caleb Burgess), 12, build confidence for a school play. Meanwhile, Monty has to remain hidden from their mom Clare (Erin Allin), the overwhelmed new Toy Kingdom president.
When I met Crystal on set, the hairy little monkey was chattering up a storm while having her diaper changed by Tom Gunderson, her trainer. Since Los Angeles-based Birds & Animals Unlimited acquired her 19 years ago, Gunderson has worked with Crystal on 25 movies and TV shows, including American Pie, Dr. Dolittle, We Bought a Zoo and the NBC sitcom Animal Practice.
Their teamwork was recognized at the “Pawscars,” the American Humane Association’s version of the Oscars, in Los Angeles last month. Crystal, described as “the Angelina Jolie of animal stars” by co-host Pauley Perrette, was wearing a pink gown and necklace as she hoisted her statuette after receiving the Lifetime Diva Achievement Award.
Crystal’s reputation for on-set aloofness emerged as she flashed me a quizzical look before dismissing me while being dressed in a green elf’s outfit, with a tiny pair of blue Converse sneakers.
“The best way to bridge a relationship with her is to basically ignore her,” Gunderson said, smiling. “You have to play hard-to-get, so to speak.”
Being snubbed by a monkey is nothing compared with the late Robin Williams’ experience on the set of Night at the Museum.
“She pooped and peed on him,” Gunderson recalled, laughing along with Tony Suffredini, a fellow animal trainer on set with Crystal’s understudy, Squirt, another female Capuchin.
“Robin was a very good sport,” Suffredini said as Squirt hugged him while sitting on his shoulders.
“He spent the next five minutes doing a comedy routine based on that. It kept the cast and crew in stitches.”
Most people who encounter Crystal tend to be as curious as she can be “but people who want to chase her or pet her ... she shies away from that,” Gunderson said.
So is Crystal a diva?
“Well, I’m not going to admit that in her presence, I can tell you,” Gunderson said, tongue-in-cheek, as Crystal chirped and jumped around. “I’d hear about it later.”
The reason for Crystal’s escalating excitement, he explained, was that she was aware something was about to happen because he was dressing her.
“They communicate very emotionally, so she’s saying: ‘What are we doing? It looks like we’re going back to work,’ ” Gunderson said, before Crystal was summoned to the shooting of a scene on the home’s sloping front yard.
The scene also features Vito, an energetic English bulldog, as the family dog Tucker, and Kayden, who shoos Tucker away with a broom as he chases Monty.
Gunderson motioned to Crystal for a sequence in which she scampers through a raised garden, rolls off a stone wall and struts toward an outdoor play structure.
“Walk, walk, walk,” he said with an encouraging voice as Crystal began.
“Hurry, hurry ... you’ve got it. Stand up, stand up,” he added as she ran across the yard.
Eight-year-old Kayden said she first met Gunderson, then shook Crystal’s hand with his permission, before they worked together.
“The most fun part is working with the monkey,” said the giggling Surrey-based actress, wearing a parka over a pink velour nightgown and pajamas.
“She even made her own pancakes.”
While the amount of preparation varies depending on Crystal’s interaction with other actors, her years of experience help, Gunderson said.
“It builds on itself,” he said. “She’s been around the block and pretty much seen it all. Often it’s special effects, wind, lightning, rain, snow, pyrotechnics, costumed characters, monsters, cartoon characters. So she is well-habituated.”
Vince, the Malibu-based filmmaker who was last here in 1998 to shoot sequences at Royal Roads University and the English Inn for The Duke, his family feature about a coonhound who inherits a duke’s estate, admitted that “as much as I love dogs,” monkeys are easier to work with.
“Monkeys are more capable of giving you a performance because they’re more like us in terms of intelligence and their ability to pick things up,” said Vince, who co-wrote the screenplay with producer Anna McRoberts for the film that is produced by Air Bud Entertainment and Netflix.
The film’s other locations include the Bard and Banker, doubling as Toy Kingdom’s exterior, and Phillips Brewery, masquerading as the Monkey Up bottling plant.