Imaginary Worlds - Making Up The Penguin

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

The Penguin series on HBO and Max has been one of the most critically acclaimed comic book-based TV shows in years. Much of the praise has gone towards actors like Colin Farrell, who plays the classic Batman villain. But the makeup and prosthetics designer Mike Marino has been singled out for his innovative and striking design of the main character. Mike sculpted an entire head and body for The Penguin, a.k.a. Oz Cobb, that obscured most of Colin Farrell while also liberating the actor to inhabit a role he might otherwise not have been cast. Mike and I go deep into his creative process working with Farrell and the director/producer Matt Reeves on The Batman film and the spin-off show The Penguin. We also talk about Mike’s mentors in the field like Dick Smith and Rick Baker, who created some of the most iconic makeup designs in cinema history. This week’s episode is brought to you by Sol Reader and ShipStation Go to solreader.com to and use the code IMAGINARY at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of Sol Reader Limited Edition. Go to shipstation.com and use the code IMAGINARY to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. I've covered a lot of fantasy worlds over the years, but as long-time listeners know, there is one fantasy world that is closest to my heart. My Happy Place is a very dark and gritty place, with a beacon of hope, a signal in the sky. But when that light hits the sky, it's not just a call,

it's a warning to them. The most recent Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson was called The Batman. I loved the film noir vibe of the movie. But what really caught a lot of people's attention was Colin Farrell's performance as the Penguin. He was totally unrecognizable under prosthetics and makeup. As the Penguin, his face is pockmarked and full of scars. His nose looks like what you'd describe as a beak

nose. His hair is black and balding. He's heavyset. He has a limp, which makes him waddle like a penguin. So he's similar looking to Danny DeVito's penguin from 1992, but not cartoony. This is a version of the penguin you can imagine seeing in the real world. And under all that makeup is Colin Farrell, who has been on several lists of sexiest men alive. And this is what he sounds like when facing off against Batman. Don't let me hurt you. You better watch it. You know my reputation. Yeah, I do. Do you? Look, I'm just a proprietor, okay?

What people do here, they got none to do with me. The Batman was one of those rare films where it seemed like afterward, everybody was asking who the makeup supervisor was. His name is Mike Marino and he's been getting even more praise lately. HBO and the streaming service Max recently aired a critically acclaimed mini-series called The Penguin. The storyline of the TV show bridges the gap between the last Batman film and the next one which will come out in 2026.

I became fascinated by Mike Marino's method of creating prosthetics because he is a storyteller through and through. The medium that he uses to express himself happens to be makeup. I had a long conversation with Mike and we went deep into learning what inspired the look of the penguin

and how he created what's turning out to be an iconic sculptural work of makeup. When I want to shut out the world, one of my favorite escapes is reading a book. And I mostly buy ebooks to save on space in my apartment. But it's hard to be a reader in 2024. You have to somehow ignore your inbox, ignore social media, try not to doom scroll, and just when you're getting into a book,

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limited edition. I began by asking Mike Moreno about his creative process in general. When he approaches a new character, what factors does he consider when designing their look? I might be a little bit different than others because even though I draw, I don't like to do it for makeup. I really don't like to overly draw or

design a character on paper or on the computer of any kind. If it's a makeup, I really like to take the Lifecast or scan, which we do now, which is a 3D scan, and then we print a high detailed copy of whatever it is the actors face and what I like to do is once it's sitting on my table and it gathered up all my references I'm in this like kind of cave you know I'm in this mode of thinking you know abstractly I just like to take clay and just start working on it and start sculpting the design raw. If I have an actor, I will do that instead and see if I can actually use my initial rough.

Like as, for instance, if you look at, you know, a person like Frank Frazetta. Are you talking about Frank Frazetta who used to do like the Conan the Barbarian covers? Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Just like total legendary painter. He would do like a miniature rough. Sometimes if he had time, something super fast,

and then just do the painting. Sometimes he wouldn't. Sometimes he would just take a panel of wood and just bash out the painting. He's like, shit, the deadline's like tomorrow. I'm going to spend all day and night painting this thing and listening to music and drinking coffee the deadlines like tomorrow I'm going to spend all day and night painting this thing and and listening listening to music and drinking coffee and just doing it as it is bam you know so I kind

of take I've taken that in a sense to what I do I don't like to overthink and over design and water it down Michelangelo would do that too the sculpt sculptor, he would not really like to do all these preparatory sculptures and clay and all this. So he would just take the piece of marble and go and just attack the marble and just discover it while it's being the actual piece. You know, there's something that lives inside that type of approach. It may not be good for others, but I like to do it that way. So I like to take my initial ideas, sculpt right on the makeup, right on the life cast, and that's what it is. When we get into situations where we're nitpicking, can you change this? Can you change this? Can you change this?

That's when the artist is taken out of it, and it just becomes this corporate thing where, if it's the director and I, that's fine. But if it's a committee designing what they think would be good, I'm out. I don't care. I don't want to do it anymore. So, like with a penguin, you've got this thing you're working on. You're in the zone, you know, you're creating it. And then, obviously, at a certain point,

you have to show it to the director of the Batman, Matt Reeves. You have to show it to Colin Farrell. Right. Like, what kind of feedback did they give, like, in terms of respecting your creativity, but then also, you know, whatever it is that they need? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm pretty intuitive on this situation. I mean, I read the script, and I understood who it was. I understood the tone of what he was going for, Matt Reeves.

So I couldn't do like a bird person. I couldn't do like this guy with a super long nose that you know, is in the comics, which is cool. And I love it. But in reality, it's really extremely rare for that to ever exist. So I have to make it work for what it is and take all those inspirational things. Comic books, the script, what Matt's thoughts were. And Colin, I know Colin for many years now, over a decade maybe more. He's a true artist, he really is, and so is Matt Reeves. They really are artists, they really see things. They really have opinions.

And I know that Matt felt a trust with me on our initial conversations. So what I had done, what I had said is that, you know, my work is not precious. My work's not really precious. It's precious once it's on film or something, you know, but when you're designing something, I feel that you really have to be collaborative. So I had said, Matt, take a look at the sculpture. Tell me what you think. If it's too much, I could make it less. If it's not enough, I can make it more. But I think this is what I think it should be.

He loved it. He showed Colin. Colin freaked out and said, oh my God, now I know what this character is. You know, because he read the script and was like, I don't really know what to do, why me? Like what, and Matt was like, no, no, I think you would be good.

Well, that's actually interesting, because I mean, that's like, that's the question that so many people, you know, and I'm sure you're sick of hearing this, like people are like, why cast this incredibly handsome Irish actor to play this like physically wildly different American gangster? Yeah.

And I know a lot of people are saying like, it was great an actor as Colin Farrell is, why not cast a guy that actually looks like that? And it's interesting that Colin Farrell himself was even asking that. Well, I think that's part of the fun of filmmaking, I mean, to be honest, because it's always been done in theater, all the way back to, you know,

ancient Greece or whatever before that. You do a makeup and you act like a character. I mean, why not hire a real murderer? Really, like, why not, you know, hire, you know, like a serial killer and then film them? You know, you want to play a serial killer. You want to do all this cool stuff. So it's play, it's fun. I mean, maybe there's someone who looks like that,

but I hard press you to find someone who could act as good as Colin Farrell and looks that weird and that strange and has that charisma and all of it. It's very hard to do. I felt that man really needed something fantastic, even in a realistic world, you know? Something a little, I mean, he's got this big, you know, I found all these really crazy pictures of gangsters and soldiers and stuff with massive scars across their face and all of that. I was gonna ask you that, so like, when you're doing your research

and you're like looking at all these images and you start sculpting and these images are popping in your head. Like, what are you thinking about? Yeah, well, I basically create my kind of my studio table, you know, wherever I'm working. It's kind of like, you know, my mental shrine over there. You know, I have all like my inspirational things hanging

and my thoughts are there. Even if I'm not specifically looking at a reference image. It's in my mind. It's in the background peripherally. So I looked at penguins with really cool faces, beat up ones, beaks that were all shredded up and chipped and damaged, and eagles, and certain birds that had these real brutal war beaks,

they're like really chipped up and twisted. That was a cool idea. I was like the penguin, he shouldn't be this black and white overweight dude, just waddling around. I mean, that may work in a different film, but this, I felt, okay, he's like in an Italian mob family, basically.

He's a gangster. He's called the Penguin. Why? Why? Does he look, his face look like a penguin? Does he walk like a penguin? All those elements, how do they actually work in reality? So I thought, you know, take the reference from the birds, you know, beat up beaks that are smashed. I found soldiers and everything that had all these brutal wounds that were like, you see that person, you're like, that person has been in some serious fights. He's been in serious battles there and his face shows it as a roadmap. So I took that inspiration and kind of combined it all with what Matt thought the feeling of the character should be because he didn't give me much direction as far as I want it to look like this. He gave me the feeling of what it should be. He said, I love the feeling of Fredo from the

Godfather. I really love how he feels. He's always wanting more and he may go behind people's back to get it, even his own family. Send Fredo off to do this, send Fredo off to do that. Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere. I can handle things, I'm smart, not like everybody says. Like dumb, I'm smart and I want respect. Also for me, when a character like Fredo from Godfather is used, and it's very smart on Coppola's part, because his appearance somewhat describes

his personality in a sense. So even if you don't realize it, he's losing his hair, he's not as handsome as Michael Corleone or Sonny, he's a little bit weaker. So I always think of that when I'm designing something and I thought, well, if this guy in this film, Penguin, is looked over and he wants more and he's kind of like Fredo, then he's going to look a little bit like Fredo in some sense. I actually tried to copy John Cazal's nose and brows and the expression. Really?

So this is the actor who played Fredo? Yeah, yeah, John Cazal. So I looked at that, I played around with Colin, I said, this works a little bit, this doesn't quite work. I said, let me just bend these around. So I initially started with some of that feeling there, some of the bone structure of the nose. And then I let it sit for a little while.

And then I went to some other area of his cheeks. And I thought like pockmarked skin and all that would be an attribute to this character that may feel left out, not such a handsome, handsome person. So let me add that in, and then I went back to the nose, and then I said, okay, it's not right, let me mess with it, and put a little bit more bird into it. So on one side of that nose, I really kind of

scarred up one of the sides that had the scar on it. So if you actually analyze what his face is, on this one side of his nose where the scar is, there's if you actually analyze what his face is, on this one side of his nose where the scar is, there's like damage, there's like scar tissue there. This is like more like material over here. His nostril is actually chipped on one side. It's like this piece is taken out. There's like a chip on one side of the nostril. But that line of that nostril is the point where a penguin or an eagle's beaks combine the line in between the mouth is

The line the shape subliminally that I put into the nostril So it's actually a bird mouth in the one side of his nostril. So it has this shape of an S Right kind of in there. So these subliminal shapes and these subliminal things are in the face. Whether you notice it or not, it lives, it's there. Every Batman villain needs a master plan, something they can put into motion one step at a time. I may be on the right side of the law, but I can relate to their sense of ambition in terms of how I've grown the podcast over the past year. And if you have an e-commerce business, you might feel the same way.

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Scale your e-commerce business with the shipping software that delivers. Switch to ShipStation today. Go to ShipStation.com, use the code imaginary to sign up for your free 60 day trial. That's ShipStation.com, code imaginary. So when you're carving out the scars on the penguin's face, are you inventing a backstory in your head? Like, are there flashback scenes in your head of how he got, I mean, to quote the Joker

from the Dark Knight, like, do you wanna know how I got these scars? Like, are you actually thinking about how he got those scars? Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. I mean, I just thought who he was. Maybe he was in his mid-40s, he's been around the block. You know, he's definitely, if you watch the movie

and if you watch the show, he's not avoiding danger. He's got an Uzi. He's firing at people in the streets. I mean, he's a crazy dude. He's a crazy person. So if he survived this long, to his mid to late 40s, he's going to have some damage. So I thought all of those things. I just thought of what would Gotham be like,

from the script, what would Gotham be like? It's pretty brutal on the streets. So I thought it fit in. It's a war zone. And the scar as well, I copied this really wild photo and found this person that had this lip that was, it must have fell off his face and they sewed it back on brutally.

And I thought that that was really cool and I worked that in as well. So all of these things are, I'm directing myself, you know, in this phase. You know, I mean, that's like the interesting thing going back to the question of like, why Colin Farrell? I feel like this kind of makeup frees you to cast literally anybody.

Like there's such a vulnerability to Colin Farrell, like deep in those eyes, and then you put those eyes into this character, and he's surrounded by all the prosthetics, but like the contrast of the two kind of makes it work. And I was curious, like, given that you worked with Colin Farrell before, were you like, yeah, of course, Colin Farrell should do this.

Like, I have no doubt doubt this should be the guy. Colin had told me it really the makeup liberated him so much to go to areas that he's never really been comfortable to go to, because he didn't have to be himself anymore. He just didn't have to be him. Colin, this whole personality came out of him. He became this charming, loud, funny, goofy, scary person, you know, so the whole personality changed. So I think that whole makeup, Lawrence Olivier, actually, the actor really loved makeup, he wanted makeup in everything he ever did. And they would fight with him and say, Oh, no, he goes, No, no, I want

to do this thing. I want to do this teeth. I want to do this thing. I want to do these teeth. I want to do the scar. I want to do these glasses. I want to do this wig. Because he felt a little bit of what I'm talking about, what Colin had his experience. When you're in a makeup that's convincing, it transforms your personality where you don't have to be you anymore. So even if it's a subtle thing like a nose or, you know, something that changes your

appearance, if it's done well, it really could just open up the doors of like, wow, I didn't know I would be able to explore this. So I think it's a beauty of what we do. And I love practical effects and I love digital effects. But digital effects don't give you that personal effect for internally for the actor, because that's all done in post. So all of the effects and visual effects, like if you're a creature, you know, someone like Gollum or something, I mean, Andy Serkis is amazing, and Matt Reeves had worked with him on Planet of the Apes. But he's not living like Gollum. You know, so that's done in post. So he understands the personality.

He does his thing, but Colin's living like Oz. He's looking in the mirror. He's going to the bathroom. He's, you know, he's Oz for 12 to 15 hours a day during filming, so you're living with this thing. It has to affect your personality in a sense. So I don't know, like, I don't know technically how this works, You're living with this thing. It has to affect your personality in a sense. So I don't know, like, I don't know technically how this works,

but I know that fans will often complain, especially with science fiction these days, that actors often look like they're buried under prosthetics, like especially for creatures and aliens. They literally, they look like they're like trapped in the prosthetics. Do you design in a way that gives them the most freedom? Because like I definitely never felt that way with the Penguin. I mean, I felt like if anything, like every expression

that Colin Farrell had, like the makeup was designed in a way to just go with it, like whatever spontaneously he expressed on his face in the moment. Like how do you design for that? Yeah, that's a really tricky thing. I mean, I think it's a personal thing. I mean, as a makeup designer, I can't speak for other people in the business. We're all using pretty much the same materials. But I think the approach for me is really just an individual thing. You know, I always try to keep, not that I'm trying to keep something so thin all the time where it just is nothing and you don't notice it.

When you're sculpting a makeup, you have the person's face there, has to live. You can't like subtract it and scrape it away. If someone's really got to be skinny or something, you can't really dig too much deeper. So it's a process of addition. So if the process of addition is I'm adding a certain amount of thickness of layers onto

someone's face, I have to really balance how thick or how thin something is to fit with the design I'm going for. So, Dick Smith, who actually did the Godfather, who is the master of makeup, he was my mentor. I would speak to him on the phone all the time when I was a kid, and he would just give me- When you were a kid? Yeah, I was a kid. I would be to him on the phone all the time when I was a kid, you know, and he would just give me... When you were a kid? Yeah, I was a kid, you know, I would be, you know, in my late... Wait, did you just like write him out of the blue or something? Yeah, I sent him our portfolio in my teens,

and I've been doing makeup now for years, and I didn't send him that stuff until I was much older, maybe 18, 19 or something, and I sent him my stuff. And then he said, hey, you know, thanks for the... I always remember then he said hey you know thanks for the higher I always remember it he sent me a postcard in the mail and it said thanks for the extensive portfolio please call me anytime except dinner 530 to 630 all the best dick you know so he sent me this postcard I was freaking out like oh my god so then I called him and get day or two later and we talked for like two

hours first time just about makeup. I didn't ask him anything like, how did you do this for the exorcist or how did you do this for the Godfather? How'd you do this for the, it was none of that. It was more like theories. It was more like, hey, I can't get this material to work. Okay, have you tried this?

Have you tried this? It was all technical stuff. But then he would slip in inspirational things like, you know, this theory and this theory and this theory and this theory. So as a kid, I was already kind of theorizing how to manipulate these materials. So Dick, actually on The Godfather, you may not even notice that Michael Corleone, the first film when he gets beat by McCluskey, his whole face is swollen and messed up. He's sitting in the chair. He's talking to Martin Thuris. He's got a full cheek on and it's blended so seamlessly into

his face. It's this full prosthetic swollen cheek and it's so perfect. It fits in the film so good and you don't really notice. You just feel like it's real. So that was the beauty of Dick Smith that changed. It was this hyper-realism that was fit into this tone of the movie where you don't really notice that it's an effect or a makeup or something. You're not like, oh, it's a zombie time. It's time for a zombie. You know, it's more like realistic situations and fitting this thing in there without noticing. You know, you play with a fine line of how much is too much and

how much is too little. You know, so when I'm designing and sculpting, I'm always thinking of thicknesses and stuff and softnesses. So I wanted to keep the expressions of Colin Farrell and his eyes mostly, but I wanted to get rid of that movie star kind of eyebrow sympathetic thing he has. I had to get rid of that. So he can't be this gangster and look so just innocent. So I changed the shape, the angle of his eyebrows

and that's a really important thing. This center of the face is the most recognizable, like you could see that from a mile away. And by the way, you're pointing to like the bridge between your eyes. Yeah, between your eyes, there's what artists call the keystone area, which is like this angled area.

When that is seen by anyone, they don't have to be an artist. That is a highly recognizable area. It's very highly recognizable. So when you change the shape of the area between the eyes, you are altering the shapes and forms drastically. You could change a lot on the other parts of the face and you still know that it's the person. But when you change that area, you are altering the entire nature of the person. So that was a really big thing for me that I wanted to change on him. So once I did that and once you change the nose, it's all you're in a totally different territory here. So I can never create skin that actually moves perfect. It's all fake. It's all you're in a totally different territory here. So I can never create skin that actually moves perfect. It's all fake.

It's all magic tricks. It's all theories, but you try, you try to duplicate it. So I said, well, I don't want to make the nose really soft like all the other parts of the face because that's not how noses are. Noses are hard. You know, it's like cartilage there. So we would make that piece coming out of the mold harder just in this section.

And then we would make parts of the face that were hanging down in the jowls really soft. So we would vary the densities of skin. And I'm just thinking logically, like Dick Smith would, how will this move to its best ability? Same with the chin. The chin I had done, I remember telling Rick Baker about it. I said, hey, you gotta try this. And Rick Baker was also Dick Smith's protege agent.

He worked with him on the Exorcist, his first project when he was a kid. Yeah, he's a legendary makeup designer. Legendary, thriller, Harry and the Hendersons, American Werewolf in London, like genius, genius. Men in black. So I was telling him about the chin. I said, I use this different material that doesn't stretch the pores there because the material that a lot of people use, I always noticed the chin's pores stretching. That doesn't work for me. So I changed that material

so the pores don't stretch as much. So when the cellan smiles and everything, the chin pore texture stays what it should be like on real skin. So the other areas could stretch around because that's what they do, but the chin always looks phony to me, so I changed that. So there's all these very densities from the thicknesses of the sculptures to the densities of the silicone to the paint job which is all airbrushed and like little flecks of color coming onto things and then you're only highlighting and darkening certain areas darkness around the eyes more the scar is a little bit more red this blood vessels and things like that that the forehead is a little bit more red just

got a lot of expression. So there's all these variables, all these steps in thinking of how can I make this look as real as possible. And you just hope it works. Because sometimes the lighting is poor. Sometimes it's shot outside and it's like, oh God, this looks really weird. You know, you just have a good crew. You make sure people are noticing if there's a bubble or if there's something going on, sweating or whatever, and you're fixing it. And if you can't fix it, you can go to someone on the Penguin

with like Johnny Hahn, who ran the visual effects department, visual effects supervisor, who was making notes with me. And I'm going in post and going like, hey, there's a bubble here. There's a part of the beard that came off right here. There's a little thing right here. The eye a bubble here. There's a part of the beard that came off right here. There's a little thing right here. The eye is weird here. The bald cap is weird here.

So we now have the advantage to go in in post digitally to fix that. I'd never rely on it. So always try to make it as realistic as possible in person, colored and applied and everything. But those are just the beauty of the technology we have now. We can go do that. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you.

It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. I want to go back to the technology again, because you mentioned silicone earlier. Are there new materials that you can work with now

that on the godfather just didn't exist 50 years ago? Yeah, they didn't exist. And some of the materials that did exist were so secretive, and no one told you how to do it. They were like, you know, chemists that were, you know, geniuses that were coming up with this stuff. And they came up with the foam latex. There was a guy named George bow, who was a great makeup artist who's foam latex master. He kind of basically, I can say probably invented the modern foam latex, but once he died, he kept the formulas

with him and all the makeup people were freaking out like, shit, he's gonna die and take all that stuff with him. And for a period of time, they could not figure out how to get it as soft as he was doing it. It was like how Dick Smith approached it. He would take a plastic or a chemical or whatever and go, well, it doesn't work the way I want it to. How can I alter it? So he would add plasticizers and he would add powders and he would add these things

and come up with these concoctions that would work for him for his purpose. And then those things became industry standards because Dick Smith was very open with his information. But you know now the developers of silicone and all of those things are friendly with us and we say well this is too soft or this is too hard. Can you make it softer? Can you make it harder? And they adapt and make things. And some of the times we kind of just mix our own materials

in the lab and just kind of figure out something that works for us that it's not so much a secret, but it's kind of our own thing. And the purpose is always how to replicate reality as good as God, whether you believe that or not. I mean, there's some master system going on of like perfection. And this is what this is. And we're all trying to replicate it. Any artist of any kind, visual effects, a painter, a sculptor, we're trying to mimic nature and we're trying to mimic what that is,

but it pales in the comparison of what it actually is. I imagine a TV show must have been an even bigger challenge because I mean, in the Batman movie, the Penguin's only in a few scenes, but like in the show, he's in like almost every single shot. I mean, other than the fact that, you know, this is a lot more screen time, like what were some of the challenges of the TV show versus the movie?

Dillon Clark, who's a producer on it, had done an interview where he said, well, you know, the movie's a bigger budget and the TV is, you know, a little bit less of a budget because it's a TV show and there's much more to cover. But that works the opposite for me. And because I'm covering much more of the work than we did in a Batman film, he's the main character.

There's a lot of different lighting environments, daytime, extreme side light and darkness, and he's in the makeup all day long, every day, almost every day. So we did have a whole full naked prosthetic, a whole body is naked in the first episode and we see his foot as well in the first episode. Those were not in the film

and those were extreme challenges to create and make sense of. Yeah, this is the damaged foot, by the way, that people don't know that's the reason why he waddles like a penguin, it's like severely damaged foot. Right, you know, and that was also something I came up with looking at real reference and then also looking at a penguin's foot

and going like, how do I combine that in a sense? And I think that works in a way to where it gives him a reason to do that thing. Because even in the comic, you really don't explore that too much, you know? You don't know what that is. So I really want to ask you about the Joker. For people who have seen the Batman movie, they you know, we only hear his voice in the end.

He's in a cell in Arkham Asylum. But there's a deleted scene on YouTube, which I think I've watched like a hundred times where the Batman meets the Joker in Arkham because Batman needs the Joker's help in psychologically profiling the Red Lair. It's an amazing scene, and the Joker's makeup is really grotesque. And like we've seen a lot of Jokers, I mean, there's like Joaquin Phoenix's Joker,

doesn't have any scars, but this Joker is really kind of grotesque, but then he's often filmed out of focus, or he's like obscured by things. And it's real, I mean, it's like brilliantly the way that it's filmed. Like, how did you design the prosthetics and makeup? And also, like, what kind of conversations did you have

with the director, Matt Reeves, about that? Yeah, so Greg Frazier and Matt Reeves always, from the beginning, had the intention of showing that scene in a blur, mostly blurry. He's a cinematographer? Cinematographer, yeah. Genius, one of the best ever. So he told you from the beginning,

the Joker is gonna be like obscured for most of the scene. Yeah, so Matt was very like saying, okay, we're only gonna see it like this. So with that thinking, it was how can I emphasize what needs to be emphasized in a blur? And then you're only gonna get clarity when he's very, very close to the camera. And then you're only going to get clarity when he's very, very close to the camera. And then you see what is going on. So that design was really kind of inspired

by my and Matt Reeves fascination of the elephant man. We love that film, David Lynch film. In fact, that was one of the first films I ever saw when I was a kid. Not that a four year old should be watching those things, but I did, you know? So that was always in my mind. And then we discovered our love for that. And we said, okay, we want to do something similar to this.

Is there a disease? Or is there a thing, an affliction, or something that we can kind of go into that with? And I'll leave it like at that. But what we did see was his teeth, which we did see was his skin quality and certain colors. So if you check the boxes, you know, you have some green hair.

We don't know how he got that. You have some pale skin. That could be natural, not really clown paint. You've got some infection, which is the red, you know, the red, the joker, you know, the mouth and stuff. You've got some infection, which is the red, the red, the Joker, the mouth and stuff. You see the teeth. So these boxes are checked, check, check, check.

And we don't know much more. So hopefully, we will see something in the future. Hopefully, we will discover more. But that was a very intricate makeup that we did. And hopefully, we can revise and go forward with that at some point in the future, but we don't know yet. Well, I know you can't. I mean, obviously there's a lot of secrecy around the Batman part too, but there's definitely there's been a lot of speculation about

what kind of villains will be in it. Have you thought about like the more fantastical villains like Clayface, who is sometimes drawn as like a clay man who can morph into anything, or like Killer Croc, who's basically a crocodile man, or Mr. Freeze? There's been a lot of speculation online of people asking specifically how you, Mike, would design those characters. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

I have so many ideas. I could totally go crazy because I have a library of reference of real stuff that you would never think exists. You'd be like, this isn't possible to be real, but it is. In terms of those types of villains. Just real life reference of diseases, injuries, afflictions on skin that actually could exist

that you would never believe that would be real. Even now with modification of gene therapies and hybridization of things, I mean, they grew even in the late 80s. They already grew a human ear on a mouse. They already grew a human ear on a mouse. So now what can actually be done? What could be done? You could literally isolate strains of DNA

and mix them with human. And what would you get if you mixed a crocodile and a human? I don't know. Something that might live and exist, that character is. If you think of Clayface in the beginning of the comics in the 40s, I mean, he's like an actor that's Something that might live and exist, that character is. If you think of Clayface in the beginning of the comics in the 40s, I mean, he's like an actor

that's supposed to be like Boris Karloff, you know? And he's a master of, you know, disguises and stuff, you know? So Clayface is putting all these things on his face, you know? It's like totally different from what it became. I think just really what's cool. And so I'm actually kind of dabbling into my own stuff now. I'm writing, I'm directing the film that I wrote. And not for to prove anything,

but it's just another form of art to express. So like I'm doing sculpture and like I'm doing a makeup and watching it move, I'm also creating my own little world in my own way. Wow, so you're working on your own movie. So like, what's that like? I mean, you know, I know you love the work that you do,

but I mean, you're a hired gun. So like, what's it like to be the master of your own world? I mean, has that been creatively liberating? I am loving writing and planning this movie. Whether I stay as a director or I don't wanna label it. I just wanna be an artist working and show people an emotion or something I'm thinking and put it on film.

I love film and the film buff. Can you say what it is? Can you talk about it? Can't really. It's not really heavily effects related deliberately. But it's, it's a true it's based on a true story takes place in New York. I lived it in a sense, I understand the environment very well. I understand the material very

well. I haven't seen many things like it. It's a movie I want to watch. That's all I'm really trying to go for. How many times where you sit on your television and flip through a thousand movies and be like, no, no, no, I don't want, I don't like it. I just want to make something that I want to click on. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Mike Marino.

My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. If you liked this episode, you should check out my 2020 episode, Making Up Creatures, where I talk with makeup artists who transform actors into much more fantastical creatures and aliens. We have a new show called Between Imaginary Worlds. It's a more casual chat show that is only available to listeners who pledge on Patreon. Last week I talked with Caleb Muir. Caleb was part of the original crew in the early

days of SpongeBob SquarePants. You have probably seen Caleb's drawings even if you've never watched the show. There are tons of memes of drawings that I did, SpongeBob memes from episodes that I drew. Even people have tattoos. I have a whole folder of photos of tattoos of my drawings that people have. Oh my God, wow. Between Imaginary Worlds comes included

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