SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes . If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk! When we first meet Freya Allan’s Nova in Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes , the impression that fans are given is that she is a straight-forward extension of an Apes franchise tradition. Linda Harrison played the original Nova in 1968’s Planet Of The Apes , a mute woman living in a society dominated by apes, and another incarnation was introduced in 2017’s War For The Planet Of The Apes – with Nova portrayed as a pre-teen who has lost the ability to speak due to a mutated strain of the Simian Flu.
Given this history, the audience accepts that Allan’s version of Nova is a silent, feral human when she is introduced in Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes – but the truth is that she is a character who is hiding some major secrets , and the actress took specific steps to implement that duplicity into her performance. As featured in the video at the top of this article, I had the pleasure of talking with Freya Allan and co-star Peter Macon during the press day for Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes earlier this year, and I made a point during our conversation to ask Allan about hiding Nova’s secret: her real name is Mae, and she is not only not feral, but on an important mission to try and restart human civilization. She explained that the twist gave her the opportunity to work with movement coordinator/choreograph.
