“Movie magic” is a broad phrase that generally encapsulates all of the incredible illusions that audiences witness on the big screen – but there is an argument to be made that the best examples possess magic behind the scenes as well. The titular creatures in the new 2025 film The Legend Of Ochi are a perfect example of this. I was blown away watching the blue and orange simians come to life during my screening (with an additional wow factor in hearing them communicate), but stars Finn Wolfhard and Helena Zengel were amazed by them even after writer/director Isaiah Saxon called “cut” and the puppeteers paused their work.
The Legend Of Ochi stars Zengel as Yuri, a young girl who finds a baby Ochi and makes it her mission to return it to its family, and Wolfhard plays Petro, her adopted brother who joins their father (Willem Dafoe) in trying to find Yuri and kill the fantastical creature. When I spoke with the actors earlier this month during the movie’s virtual press day, they discussed their experience with the practical creation on set. I asked the duo if the magic was maintained between scenes, and Wolfhard explained how he consistently saw a live animal:
You have a team of people, of puppeteers, who are piloting this puppet, and they’re the actors in a lot of ways. They’re trying to convey a performance from this creature, and it really does feel alive. And then yeah, when they say, ‘Cut,’ you usually take a break for a second, but it does look so real. I mean, it’s not as obvious, it’s not emoting as much because they’re not working on the performance, but I mean, if you put the Ochi, just like lifeless [puppet] in a forest somewhere, someone would find it and think that it was a real, dead, extinct thing.
