Keri Russell says the opportunity to collaborate again with Matt Reeves, co-creator of her iconic television series Felicity, was the main reason she signed on to play a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nurse trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
"I got involved through Matt Reeves, the director, and Matt and I had worked together over 10 years ago on a series called Felicity and I had a very close relationship with him, but we've been trying all of these years to find something to work on again. I never thought it would be Planet of the Apes," the 38-year-old actress laughed during a recent press conference to promote the blockbuster-to-be, which is earning rave reviews.
"But he called me last spring and said, 'I'm doing this; come do this with me,'" Russell recalled. "And I think what is special for me with this is just the idea of these big summer, action movies, partnered with Matt's sensibility, which is this incredibly detailed, sensitive, emotional storytelling and I think that can only serve a big summer movie. It's the kind of movie I'd want to see."
Co-starring Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman and Judy Greer, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is in theaters now. It is the sequel to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes.