Terry Notary

Birthday: 1968-08-14
Birthplace: San Rafael, California, USA
Gender: Male
Owned By: Unowned

Terry Notary (born August 14, 1968) is an American actor, stunt coordinator/double, and movement coach. Notary mainly portrays creatures and animals for the film and television industry and is known for his motion capture performances in films like Avatar, The Adventures of Tintin: Secrets of the Unicorn, the Planet of the Apes reboot series, The Hobbit trilogy, and Kong: Skull Island. In 2018, Notary played Cull Obsidian in the Marvel Studios films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

Born in San Rafael, California, Notary was diagnosed as being severely hyperactive at age 7. His parents enrolled him in gymnastics class to burn off excess energy. He won a gymnastics scholarship at UCLA, where he graduated with a major in theatre.

Notary's first career was as a performer with Cirque du Soleil. His first job as a stunt movement coach was on Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Director Ron Howard was hiring Cirque gymnasts for the film, and after sufficiently impressing Howard, Notary was offered the job of teaching all the actors how to move. Notary followed this new career path to Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, for which he prepared by studying ape movements at the LA County Zoo. Notary's first motion capture film was Avatar, where he was the movement coach for the Na'vi.

Swedish director Ruben Östlund hired Notary when casting his Palme d'Or-winning 2017 film The Square. For Oleg, a character who acts like an ape, Östlund discovered Notary after running a Google search for "actor imitating monkey" and viewing one of Notary's performances (which was for an audition for Planet of the Apes). His performance in that single scene, in which a performance artist acts like a hostile ape at a fancy dinner, was widely praised, The Independent calling it "the most tense, uncomfortable scene of the year."

Description above from the Wikipedia article Terry Notary, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Credits

Year Title Character
2025-03-07 The Electric State Mr. Peanut / Pop Fly / Sentre Drones / Ice Cream Bot / Skeeve Bot
2024-05-08 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Rocket
2022-07-20 Nope Gordy
2020-02-19 The Call of the Wild Rail Worker / Live Action Reference Performance of Buck
2019-04-24 Avengers: Endgame On-Set Groot / Cull Obsidian
2018-04-25 Avengers: Infinity War Cull Obsidian / On-Set Groot
2018-02-14 The Beautiful Escape Oleg
2017-08-25 The Square Oleg
2017-07-11 War for the Planet of the Apes Rocket
2017-03-08 Kong: Skull Island Kong Mo-Cap Services
2016-05-25 Warcraft Grommash Hellscream
2014-12-10 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Laketown Refugee (uncredited)
2014-07-08 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Rocket
2013-12-11 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Goblin (uncredited)
2012-12-12 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Great Goblin / Yazneg (uncredited)
2012-04-12 The Cabin in the Woods The Clown (uncredited)
2011-08-03 Rise of the Planet of the Apes Rocket / Bright Eyes
2011-05-12 Attack the Block The Creature
2009-11-07 The Lost Tribe Alpha Male
2008-11-08 The Forgotten Ones Alpha Creature