Tai's trainer talks about WFE, Tai & Rob and more

Can you explain to us what your company “Have Trunk Will Travel” does exactly?

Gary Johnson: We have six elephants, five females and one breeding bull. Four babies were born with us and that’s very rare. That’s a huge achievement, because asian elephants are an endangered species. All over the world there are only about 35,000 of them left. We have eight full-time co-workers that take care of the elephants. Tai, an female, asian elephant is Rosie in “Water for Elephants”. All our elephants, apart from the bull, have played in lots of movies, ads and TV shows before. For Tai, movie sets and directors are nothing new. We’ve had her for 35 years now and because of the experience she has by now working with her is really pleasant.

Do you and Tai have to work hard in this movie?

Johnson:  Especially in this movie we’ve worked a lot. It was very exciting as well though. I loved everyone who worked on this movie. People were realy respectful and always friendly. The director Francis Lawrence was a real gentleman and did a great job in my opinion. He drove to our ranch in California a dozen times to watch the training and to spend time with Tai. That’s how he knew how to shoot the scenes with her later on.

How much time did Reese Witherspoon with Tai? The relationship between Marlena and Rosie is very important for the story right?

Johnson: Reese Witherspoon visited the ranch often to train with Tai, because she has some really physical scenes with her. She had to climb onto Tai, just how it is known from circuses when the girl sits on top of the elephant. Tai lay on her side and when she got up Reese had to learn to stand on her trunk. They had to train a few different options to climb on top then. In one scene Tai stands on her back legs and Reese directly beneath her. In another scene Tai does a headstand and Reese dances beneath her at the same time. That’s really complicated and we had to train those scenes with a choreographer. The timing had to be right. In another scene Reese stands on top of the elephant. Another time Tai sits on a base and stands on her back legs and Reese then climbs onto her back. They had to train that scene a very long time. Tai does things like that regularly and it’s part of her routine. She practices daily and a lot.

 

You can read the complete translated interview at Robsteners -and you can read the rinal one | Source (In German)
~Robstenfan