A Monster Calls interview: How Spider-Man helped bring Liam Neeson's tree creature to life

‘A Monster Calls’, JA Bayona’s adaptation of Patrick Ness’s hit teen novel, arrives in cinemas on New Year’s Day. It tells the story of 13-year-old Conor O’Malley, a troubled young boy struggling to come to terms with his mother’s terminal illness.

At 12:07am each night Conor (Lewis MacDougall, ‘Pan’) is visited by a huge walking yew tree who tells him three tales to help him come to terms with his situation. The monster is a stunning creation, portrayed by Liam Neeson via the wizardry of performance capture, and it’s the perfect marriage of mind-blowing VFX and stunning audio design that works in service of the story, rather than just acting as window dressing.

To bring the monster to life, Neeson and MacDougall worked for a fortnight in a performance capture studio, while other actors – including a certain Webslinger – stood in for the tree monster on set.

“Lewis and I spent two weeks in a motion capture [studio], it’s not just a voice… this is me,” Neeson told Yahoo Movies.

“Through this motion capture process, it’s extraordinary. You’re in an acting space with 70 cameras in a piece of clothing with various ping pong balls – sensors – attached to it. These computer guys to this magical digital make up to your body which is extraordinary.”

“Tom [Holland], obviously knowing the director from ‘The Impossible’, he did come and visit the set a couple of times,” added 14-year-old MacDougall.

“One day [Tom] did the monster’s lines because sometimes it was a recording of Liam, but sometimes it was somebody live there. So he did come in just for one scene. He gets a credit, but I think that was a jokey thing.”

Neeson also praised director JA Bayona, who’ll start shooting ‘Jurassic World 2’ at Pinewood in late February, for his focus on the humanity of the fantastical tale, something that probably helped to land him the sequel to the 3rd highest-grossing movie of all time.

“For [Bayona] it’s always about the human heart, the emotions going on between the children and adults. That’s his core. Everything else is after that. Some directors go crazy with CGI and they’re like a kid in a toy shop, but Bayona is always specifically about the emotions that are happening in the story.”

‘A Monster Calls’ arrives in cinemas on New Year’s Day.

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