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Jorma Taccone on Land of the Lost
By Fred Topel | Image property of Universal Pictures
Jorma Taccone may have the most thankless role in Land of the Lost. He dresses in a monkey suit and babbles a monkey language as Chaka. Chaka was always the whipping boy of Land of the Lost fans.
Jorma Taccone in Land of the Lost
“A bunch of my friends growing up in Berkeley had seen the original and they would act it out on weekends after they saw it,” Taccone said. “Apparently, everyone I talked to said that the shortest person always had to play Chaka and they hated it. So I relate now. No, but I saw it after I got cast. I went through the first three seasons and saw all of them.”
Taccone had the benefit of Hollywood makeup magicians for the film, but in auditioning, he had to use his imagination. “The first auditions, I would send stuff, I would record stuff on my iMac. just make these little videos and send Quicktimes to [director] Brad [Silberling] and see like is this kind of what you want? Then I went in to actually just record it with the casting director in New York and it was pretty similar. It was actually kind of embarrassing that after I got cast, I’m so excited, I talked to several people including my father who were all like, ‘Ah, you’re playing a little monkey guy? That’s perfect.’ It happened so many times, I was going, ‘Wait, what? Why? Why is that perfect?’ But I do tend to sit like this [crouched on the chair.] It’s pretty weird but I do tend to sit like this a lot.”
Land of the Lost
Land of the Lost
In one scene, Chaka joins Marshall, Will and Holly for a dip in an abandoned motel pool in the Land of the Lost’s desert of time warped artifacts. The costume held up well before the inevitable wardrobe malfunction.
“By the fourth time I think I jumped in, it was a nightmare. It was like a living nightmare. I jumped into the pool and I immediately heard people laughing, but a cacophony of laughter through water so you’re hearing just like this burble of like har har, like you’re in a dream and I immediately knew my wig fell off. I know my wig fell off. So I looked even uglier, basically like a hairy version of Darth Vader when he takes his thing off. So I came out of the water and there’s just 100 people pointing and laughing. You burst through the water and then I just immediately got out of the pool and ran around going, ‘Stop looking at me!’ It’ll be on the DVD.”
While Will Ferrell and Danny McBride improvised a storm, comedian Taccone was held back by his character’s fictitious language. “That’s actually one of the hardest parts because I’m speaking another language, it’s very difficult to improv in another language. In that scene where we’re all, that super drugged out scene in the desert and Will’s talking about making us like kiss. I don't know if that’s in the movie but we’re improving for like 10 minutes, the sun’s going down and all I could think to say, because I wanted to be able to say all this stuff, and in my mind I’m trying to translate into Pakuni. So all I was saying was, ‘Ha ha amora, ha ha, amora’ which basically means love. It’s all love.”
Land of the Lost is out in theaters now.
For the trailers, poster, stills, review and more movie info, go to the Land of the Lost Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of Universal Pictures
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