The man behind the monkey: Incredible deleted scene from Rise of the Planet of the Apes DVD

Yahoo! Movies has nabbed some amazing behind-the-scenes footage from 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' (now out on DVD) that shows what it takes to play a computer-generated monkey.

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It's a deleted scene from the surprisingly excellent sci-fi prequel that sees villainous ape Caesar (played by Andy Serkis) showing off his freaky toy-building and jigsaw-making skills to scientist James Franco.

However, as the scene never made it into the final film, the ridiculously impressive computer generated mo-cap trickery that bought Caesar to life wasn't used — so we see Serkis, wearing a grey leotard, jumping around instead.

Check out the video below.

It's a side of motion-capture we don't usually see, and it's amazing how life-like Serkis' ape impression actually is, from the noises to the monkey-jumping. Incredibly he also keeps a straight face through-out.

It also makes you wonder whether Serkis — who was widely praised for his performance in the film — could be the first actor who doesn't physically appear in a film to be nominated for an Oscar.

Studio boss Tom Rothman, who greenlit 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', has already admitted that 20th Century Fox are campaigning hard for him to get a nod.

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He said: "I think we may be at the place where we will see a first-ever in Hollywood this year.

"Which is to see Andy Serkis get nominated for a best supporting actor for 'Planet of the Apes', even though his face never actually appears, but his performance appears, so we are going to push that hard."

We also reckon James Franco deserves some kind of award… for not cracking up every two minutes.

'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' is out on DVD and Blu-ray now.