While Sophia Lillis’ animal training may seem like a fully wasted effort, it wasn’t unreasonable of her to assume she’d be asked to put on a motion capture suit. As Regè-Jean Page explained, “She thought she was going to go full Andy Serkis on this and legit studied the movements of every animal she could turn into.” Serkis is well known for his motion capture work with roles like Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” and Caesar the Ape in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and Lillis clearly assumed similar work would be required of her for “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.”
Page, always a team player, thinks the extra training wasn’t totally irrelevant, as it helped Lillis to embody the character of Doric to a much greater degree. Knowing how to behave like the animals she can become may have aided Lillis by allowing her to relate to the way a druid would exist in the world. “She’s got that in the locker now,” the “Bridgerton” star said. “And also, she’s really humble about it. Because you’ve got all that just in the background of the character. Like, this is where the depths are.”