Motion capture veteran Allan Henry reveals the challenges of playing the Cocaine Bear

Allan Henry, a motion capture performer was roped in to play the wild, rampaging bear high on an absurd amount of cocaine on the sets of Cocaine Bear. He was the man who acted like the bear so that the actors could have something real to interact with for their fight sequences.

For this, Allan had to wear a heavy costume, and learn to act and breathe like a bear. Fortunately, Allan Henry could essay the role well. As a motion capture veteran, he has worked in the Planet of the Apes trilogy, but even Allan admitted that the Planet of the Apes had more humanistic animals. The 500-pound huge bear in Cocaine Bear was not human at all.
Allan revealed that this role was more difficult because he had to move as close as possible to how a bear actually moves and mimic his pace besides his breathing. To meet the challenge, he watched the bears that had already been in the media glare such as the bear in the film The Revenant, and even had a look at what Baloo did in The Jungle Book. He also watched plenty of nature documentaries and looked at real-life footage of bears caught by people in an urban environment.

Allan Henry had to wear a special costume on the sets to play Cokey, the bear.