Peter Elliott

Peter Elliott (born 1956 in Yorkshire, England) is a British actor best known for playing apes and other non-human characters in film and television.

Early life Elliott grew up in Hertfordshire; one parent was a woodwork teacher. He was trained as a Method actor at East 15 Acting School. His interests as an early-career performer were in highly physical forms of acting, doing acrobatics, martial arts, and boxing.

Acting career Elliott's specialization in ape roles began in 1978, when he auditioned for the film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (released 1984). Elliott spent several months at the institute, observing chimpanzee behavior and conversing in American Sign Language with the chimpanzee Washoe.

Movement directing work Elliott's later career has mixed acting work with jobs as a movement director, movement-based drama teacher, and animal-role choreographer. Jobs coaching and choreographing other actors' movement for non-human characters include work on the films Quest for Fire (1981), Congo (1995), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), and on Birmingham Stage Company's theatrical adaptations of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (2004) and Michael Morpurgo's Kensuke's Kingdom (2005).