Dubai: The man who taught actors to move like apes in Planet of the Apes and like the Na'vi in Avatar had a simple message for a room of aspiring performers in Sharjah: stop trying to be perfect.
Hollywood creature performer and movement coach Terry Notary led a two-hour masterclass, Creature Performance and Motion Capture, at the Sharjah Animation and Comics Conference (SACC) 2026 in Aljada. It was his first appearance in the Middle East.
The session covered how posture, breath and rhythm make digital creatures believable. It also showed how live performance is captured through motion capture suits and real-time virtual production tools such as Unreal Engine.
'When it's perfect, it's not real'
For Notary, convincing performance starts with dropping the urge to get everything right.
"Life isn't perfect, and neither is a movie set. When it's perfect, it feels perfect, and it's not real," he said. "I always encourage my actors to allow themselves to make mistakes. Then it becomes part of the real experience, and the audience can identify with it."
He told the room that what holds most actors back is conditioning and the need for approval.
"We've all been conditioned to be a certain way. It becomes your identity, your resume, but it's not really who you are, and as an actor that limits you," he said. "Let go of needing to be liked, needing to be approved. When you do, you get comfortable enough to let people actually see you."
Up, out and wide
The practical part of the session began with what Notary calls a neutral body, a blank canvas from which any character can be built.
Participants sat forward with no back support, opening the chest and imagining a helium balloon lifting the head. He said he uses the same exercise with athletes and chief executives as well as actors.
"Your body is your vehicle of expression. You have to be honest enough with yourself to be seen. You are in charge of your own space."
He then handed out short stilts and guided participants through quadrupedal movement, or walking on four limbs, as an introduction to the creature work he is known for.
'I found myself today'
The room included filmmakers, artists and actors from different backgrounds, and for some, the session went beyond technique.
"The movements, the posture, the mindset every actor should carry through a scene should feel effortless, and he does it really well," said Nikhil Ramdas, 37, a Sharjah-based filmmaker, commercial director and AI visualiser. "I will use these tips across my filmmaking journey."
His friend Gautam Raveendran, 37, is a Dubai-based film director from India. "How movement and state of mind can let your ego go and bring out the actor inside you," he said of his biggest takeaway.
Yana Shakhmaeva, a Russian who works in aviation, attended with her son, an aspiring actor. For her, the class was personal.
"I found myself today," she said. "There was a lot of tension before coming for this class, and now I feel free."
From the Grinch to Kong
Notary was born in California, trained as a gymnast and performed with Cirque du Soleil before moving into film. His first job as a stunt and movement coach was on Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 2000.
He went on to work on Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, preparing by studying ape movement at the Los Angeles Zoo. He later coached the actors playing the Na'vi in James Cameron's Avatar.
In front of the camera, he played the chimpanzee Rocket across the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy and performed the motion capture for Kong in Kong: Skull Island. He also played Cull Obsidian in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. In Ruben Ostlund's The Square, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2017, he played the ape-like performance artist.
His other credits include The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and The Hobbit trilogy.
SACC 2026, organised by the Sharjah Book Authority, ran at Aljada from October 22 to 25.