The Joe Rogan Experience - #1377 - Rick Baker

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

Rick Baker is a retired special make-up effects creator and actor, mostly known for his creature effects and designs. He won the Academy Award for Best Makeup seven times from a record of eleven nominations.

Here we go, in 3, 2, 1... Rick Baker, ladies and gentlemen. How are you, sir? Hey, I'm great, Joe. Everybody's been saying on my Instagram I should do this podcast for ages. Well, I'm glad they listened, or you listened, rather. I've been a fan of yours forever, man. I was a huge Star Wars fan when I was a kid, and you inspired me. When I was young, I really wanted to be a makeup artist. I wanted to do special effects and the kind of stuff that you do.

Well, I had no idea. Yeah, man. I think it was probably Star Wars that kicked it off for me because I, like many kids, a lot of people today, you know, we're so removed with first VHS and then DVDs and LaserDiscs and now streaming. It's so easy to watch movies. But when Star Wars came out, we would go see it over and over and over again. It was like a little contest between a lot of the kids that I went to school with. And I think I saw it 13 times while it was out in the movie theater. But I became fascinated. I've always been fascinated with comic books. I always wanted to be a comic book illustrator. And I always loved those fantasy novels, like Creepy and Eerie, you know, those graphic novels. But I really became fascinated with special effects and particularly makeup after your work.

Well, you know, it's kind of the same thing for me. I mean, you know, I grew up and I was born in 1950. You know, I grew up in front of a TV, but it was a little black and white one, you know. And there was always the monster movies on Saturdays or Sundays. And that stuff just hit a chord with me. And I just said, I have to do this. What was the first thing that you did? First ever makeup kind of thing I did?

Well, I mean, I'm an only child. My mom wasn't supposed to have kids because she had a bad heart and stuff. But they wanted children. But I was very shy I stayed in my bedroom I couldn't talk to an adult and stuff like that the very first thing I you know I got interested in makeup and I got some just white grease paint and black grease paint and smeared it on my face and just with a layer of grease paint on my face when I was looking in the mirror, it wasn't little Ricky Baker anymore. And I could do things that I couldn't do without this shit smeared on my face. And it just – it helped me overcome my shyness.

But, I mean, it started with that. But, I mean, I – but I wanted to do something more, you know. So I ended up making – I made my first mask, I think, when I was 13. And it was a Cse of Frankenstein. I did that one mainly because I thought I could copy that one and make it look close enough because there's some crudeness to that makeup. I actually at first didn't like it, but I like it now. When you find out how the film industry works, and poor Philip Leakey, who did that makeup, had like a week to prep, you know, and no money. So I forgive some of the faults with it. Well, it's great when you stop and think about the earliest versions of makeup in movies, like special effects style makeup in movies.

You know, you go back to like Nosferatu is probably one of the very earliest. Right. I mean, they really didn't have anything to go with. There wasn't anything to copy. They kind of had to make it up. Yeah. And I mean, you know, the thing is that Nosferatu is such a, I mean, it's a great film. It's a great film still to this day.

Yeah. And the look, you know, I mean, it shouldn't work by all, you know, it's like a big hooked nose, you know, but it works great. But yeah, it, same thing. I mean, Lon Chaney had nothing to work with, spirit gum and cotton, and he did, to this day, some of my favorite makeups and some of the best makeups. And I think the limitations in a lot of ways made the makeups work better. I mean, now we can add so much stuff. And I find that happens so much now, like with that face-off show and stuff.

It's more like about how much can you pile on someone's face, you know. But sometimes the most effective makeups are just the teeniest little bit of things that you do and let a lot of the humanity show through. Like Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera. Great makeup. Yeah. That's terrific. And Chaney was just of the Opera? Great makeup. Yeah. And Chaney was just brilliant anyways. I'm great at making scary faces. That's how I learned to make scary faces, watching

Chaney movies. Yeah, and he's another one. There was not much for him to go on. He was kind of like a pioneer. For sure. And I mean, again, like I said, still some of my favorite makeups. That and Jack Pierce's Frankenstein's Monster. Yes. Again, for sure. And, I mean, again, like I said, still some of my favorite makeups. That and, you know, Jack Pierce's Frankenstein's Monster. Yes.

Again, crude materials, you know. And, you know, poor Boris Karloff, what he had to endure. I mean, none of the makeups he did on Boris were comfortable, you know, with cotton and spirit gum and collodion. Collodion, I don't know if you know. You might know what collodion is because of your fight background kind of stuff. But it's a plastic. They used to use it to close up boxers' wounds and stuff.

It's like kind of this liquid plastic, but it smells horrible. And, you know, to be working around someone's eyes with this fumes of stuff. And, you know, I mean, he had to put up with a lot. So it's kind of like a glue? Yeah. It's kind of a liquidy, plasticky stuff. Can you pull up a video of Nosferatu? What year was that?

20, I don't know what. 1922? That's crazy. Yeah. You stop and think about that, you know, film itself had only been how old then? Yeah, not very. Not very. But yeah.

See if you can get a video of it. Yeah. His, just the whole thing about the way he moved, like everything, it was so creepy and interesting. Well, and the whole film. I mean, it's beautifully shot. I mean, so many of the silent films. I mean, the photography is so incredible. I mean, I wonder what they did with the fingers.

Like, how did they get his fingers? Well, I think those are just his hands at this point. I mean, later, I mean, in like the John Barrymore, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I remember reading Famous Monsters, which was, again, like my Bible. Did you get Famous Monsters at all? Yes. Oh, yeah, you said Creepy Mary and all that. Sure. They said John Barrymore did the whole transformation without makeup,

and it's not true. He's got finger extensions on. He's got like a pointed back of a head, you know, and stuff. But yeah, it's Nasratu. Brilliant. So what do they do for his ears? Do you know? Well, I'm not sure what they're made out of.

Same with the bald head. I mean, I know rubber existed then. I mean, you can kind of see. I mean, he's got, I think it's probably just like a slip rubber, which is like what Halloween masks are made out of, ears and bald head and nose. Yeah, some sort of prosthetic nose, right? Yeah, and those big pointy teeth. But again, I mean, if you really kind of analyze it and look at it,

you think this is stupid. It'll never work, you know, but it works great. And I also think it's because Max Schreck was great. You know, he does some really cool things with his hands and stuff. Well, if you didn't, if nothing like this existed and it was dark out and you saw a guy like that in your house, you would freak out. I mean, that's terrifying looking. I'd freak out just if I saw somebody in my house anyway.

Yeah, someone smiling would freak out. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's such an interesting time capsule when you look at these films when you look at something like like nosferatu from 1922 and then you look at what we're doing today with cgi in a lot of ways i mean i'm not a fan of cgi i'm not a fan of it in terms of uh like for monsters it just seems everything seems fake there's the suspension of disbelief is higher than if i'm like what you did with American Werewolf in London.

One of the more brilliant things about it was the special effects and the makeup were fantastic. But there were these really quick scenes. It was like you saw it for a second and it was burned into your eyes. And then it vanished. Yeah. What John Landis said to me is that I'm never going to really show the werewolf for more than a couple seconds. And I hardly even want to show it then, you know. Right.

And what was great about Werewolf, working on that film with John Landis, was he, you know, said, you're the expert. I want a four-legged hound from hell. I wanted to make a biped werewolf, you know. We argued about it. And it was basically, you know, he wins. He's the director, you know. But he says, four-legged hound from hell, make it. And I did. I mean, the first sculpture was what the final thing became same

with everything in it the nazi demons all that stuff you know cut to you know like when i did the wolf man i mean it did thousands of designs and and you know all these producers are going well maybe if you do one between this and that and do one between this and that and or maybe this poor should be over here you know know, and that kind of stuff just is so soul sucking, you know, and it's one of the reasons I retired, you know, I just, but to this day, I mean, like on the, on the cover of my, my book is the sculpture from, uh, of the, one of the Nazi demons from American werewolf. And, and a number of people said, this is like one of the greatest designs ever, you

know, and this kind of stuff. And it's, uh, people who are production designers and stuff. And it's pure Rick Baker without interference. And that's what I thought the industry would be, which it isn't for the most part. Well, it's just everybody wants to – it's the same with comedy. It seems like it's the same with everything. Everybody wants to put their greasy little fingerprints on it and and say that's the reason why his nose is like that was me yeah i i told rick baker you don't know what you're doing yeah you got to make the

nose wider yeah no i know yeah that's oh and it's you know it's watered watered down the design yeah like i said it's soul-sucking i mean if and when you know you know sculptures take a long time and you know we sculpt every pore and every wrinkle and everything you know i have like magnifying glasses i wear when i'm doing this and after you spend you know we sculpt every pore and every wrinkle and everything you know I have like magnifying glasses I wear when I'm doing this and after you spend you know hours and sleepless nights

doing it and then some guy who doesn't know what he's talking about comes in and says well you know why don't you do this you know

well they're disturbing your artistic vision it's just I mean when someone contributes money and they're the ones who get to decide whether things get made

or not made you know just they think they're artistic as well. Yeah. It becomes a disaster. And it's the thing, you know, I mean, when you see a movie or a TV show, there's 47 producers. Yeah. You know, it used to be they were show people.

And there was a guy, you know, for example, on Gremlins 2, Mike Finnell, who was the producer, who came from Roger Corman School of Filmmaking, you know, so he really checks every penny. But he was a guy I could go to and he would look at everything and go, why is this, why are you buying this? And you'd explain it to him and you'd go, okay, that makes sense. And there'd be a person you could talk to and you could get an answer from. Now there's, like I i said 47 producers and nobody will commit to anything you know and then it's it drove me crazy and you know i mean i it was i i did make

it because i loved it and i was i feel so fortunate that my hobby became my profession and i did well and got awards for it and stuff and for something i would do for free you know but it got to the point where i i was just becoming a bitter old man because of all this. And I just said, I have to retire, and I want to make things for myself. Well, I still can. I'm almost 69 years old and having trouble with joints and vision and all kinds of stuff.

And I'd be pissed off if I was working on some movie for some producer that didn't know what he was talking about and screwed up my work. Right, messed with your head. Yeah, so it's time to just make my own thing. And I'm loving it. What kind of stuff are you doing now? I do all kinds of stuff. I mean, I still do makeups for fun.

I've actually cast up some of my – I've saved a lot of molds. I cast up some of the old Star Wars stuff out of molds and stuff. And I do animations. I make models. I make little movies. But you're just doing it purely for the joy of it now. Painting and sculpting. It's just like it was when I was a kid.

Oh, that's awesome. My bedroom was my workshop. And I'm surprised I'm still alive. You know, I was, I had a bunch of toxic chemicals in the same room that I slept, you know, and, but it's, you know, it's what I've done since I was a kid. It's how I have fun. It's how I entertain myself, you know, and, and like I said, on my Instagram, everybody's going, you know, I thought you retired.

And I said, I retired from the film industry. I didn't retire from being a creative guy. I mean, this is who I am. This is what I do. It's how I have fun. That's awesome. You know, as much as the process was probably annoying with the Wolfman, the end result was cool. I really loved how you did it and you made it old school.

It was kind of like almost like the original Wolfman, but like, you know, redone. Yeah. Well, I was, you know, I'm a fan. Yeah. And, you know,one yeah well i was you know i'm a fan you know and and you know and i think it's i think that too i mean people who love what they're doing and come up from a fanboy uh point of view you know it's it and it's something i think the producers don't understand because they're all about making as much money as they can and they think everybody's trying to

cheat them out of money and stuff you know it's like there's so many times i i would say you know why did you hire me you know if you don't you're not letting me do what i do right and it's like well you're the best and i go well let me do what i let me be the best have some faith you know i mean you're making it so i can't and the wolfman was a case like that i mean it was a battle through the whole thing and that was one of these things with thousands of designs and changed this one little thing but i thought that you know in end, the original director left right before we started filming. They brought somebody else in and I just said, we don't have an approved design.

I'm making what I thought I should make seven months ago. I did a test on myself that basically looked like that. We don't have time to screw around. The new director isn't going to have a choice, which I don't think he was really happy about. But in the end, I mean, I thought the movie was the closest thing to an old school horror movie in a long time. It was, but it also had the feel like a lot of people fucked with it. It felt like it was missing an individual or singular vision. Well, it's every movie now.

Yes. God, that's so frustrating to hear. Well, I think Tarantino still pulls it off. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, he's one of the rare guys that still... You watch a movie and you go, Jesus Christ, like, the shit that he gets away with, that's a Tarantino movie.

Like, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, that is a Tarantino movie. Oh, yeah. Like, if you told... If I saw that movie and you said, who made that movie?

I'd be, fucking Tarantino made that movie. If they didn't, they're going to jail. It's like... He's just... He gets away with so much

and his movies seem like his movies. And he's a fanboy. You know what I mean? He knows movies really well. No, I mean, thank God for him. I mean, I really enjoy his films. Me too.

I met Quentin. I was at a film festival in Seges, Spain. It's a science fiction fantasy film festival. I was a guest, and I was there. That's where I met Peter Jackson. He sat next to me at a screening, and we became friends. And he had his movie Brain Dead. Have you ever seen that?

Oh, it's really good. It's really fun. It's really gory, but funny gory and really clever. When did he make that? Well, this was like in the 90s or something, I guess. I'm real bad with dates. But anyways, we were sitting and talking, and Freddie Francis, who was a director and a director of photography, did a lot of Hammer movies. And Stuart Freeborn was there, and we're sitting in this thing, and there was this big kind of goofy kid walking around.

And I thought he was just like a fan. So I said, come on over and sit down with us. And we started talking and go, what are you doing here? And he was obviously like an American. And he goes, I have a film here you know and it was reservoir dogs and and we went to see it and i actually left in the scene where they're torturing the cop it's funny people think i like gory gory stuff you know because i've done it in films but real stuff and if it's really intensely done on a film like that was, I mean, I thought he was going to light this guy on fire

where he's got the cop in a chair at one point, and I said, I don't want to see this. So I left, and so did Wes Craven. And we went, and he got so jazzed by that. He goes, Wes Craven

couldn't take my movie, and Rick Baker couldn't take my movie. It's so cool. That's awesome. And that was a great thing. I mean, like I said, that was my introduction to Peter Jackson. And we became fast friends. We kind of had the same background. And it's like what you said to me about wanting to be a makeup artist and reading those things.

I know so many people like that. You know, Danny Elfman said that to me. Oh, really? Yeah. John Fogerty likes that. John Fogerty? Yeah. Oh, wow.

I don't know if they wanted to be a makeup artist, but he really liked that stuff. Oh, yeah. Slash. You know, a lot of these different people, you know, and they went into rock and roll instead of that, you know. But, you know, I never veered off that path. I mean, from age 10, this is what I wanted to do. And I didn't have a plan B. And fortunately, it worked because I grew up very lower middle class.

I didn't know anybody in the film industry. And when I finally met somebody, I was 13. And Universal Studios just started their tour. And I talked to my parents. They said, you know, you're going to be a teenager. It's a special birthday. You know, what can we do? And I said, can we go to Universal on the Universal tour? And in my head, I was going to hop off the tram and run into the makeup department, and they were going to hire me.

and run into the makeup department and they were going to hire me. But on the way, I knew that – are you familiar with Don Post's masks? The Don Post studios, they did the universal classic monster masks. They were in the back of famous monsters and stuff. Okay. But they did these really high-quality masks that were like $35 in the 60s, which was way beyond anything I could ever afford. But everybody, every kid, monster kid coveted those masks, you know. And his studio was in Burbank near Universal.

And I had seen him on TV talking about how he was buying Universal. So when we got close, I asked my dad if he could maybe look in the phone book and maybe call up Don Post and we could go visit. And they were very gracious. You know, my dad said, you know, my son Ricky likes monsters and makes masks and we're in close by. Can you come by? And they said, sure. You know, gave me the whole tour. Wow. Yeah. And on the wall in Don Post Studios was a picture of Bob Burns, who I'd read about in my monster magazines. He's a collector and he's done some makeup. He had a mummy suit and a gorilla suit that he made and had his phone number, and I wrote it down.

And again, I was still pretty shy, and I got my dad to call this guy who I read about in Monster Magazines, and he was the first guy I ever met anywhere related to the industry. And again, Bob and Kathy welcomed me into their home. He showed me how to do a scar, a cut out of mortician's wax and where to get the stuff at Max Factor. And it just was like one of the first people to show me stuff. And he worked at the local CBS station and introduced me to the guy who did the newsmen, the makeup artists who made up the newscasters. And he was like blown away by the stuff that I did. He goes, I'm going to take you to the makeup union.

And I was like 15 at this point. And so I went to the makeup union with a box full of heads and masks and pictures of makeups I did. Again, naive, thinking that they were going to say, start tomorrow, get a job. And the business rep of the union said, you know, give up, kid. You're never going to get in. You know, that you have to be born into the industry. It was a real – at that time – At that time, there was a lot of nepotism.

I mean, there's still nepotism. That bad? Yeah. But he says, you know, if you were a Westmore, you know, you would get a union card with your birth certificate, you know. But nobody knows. You don't know anybody. He said, first of all, you have to be 21 to serve an apprenticeship. I was 15.

He said, there's only a few apprenticeships and they're going to go to a Westmore or to a Bauer or, you know, somebody who was a name makeup artist or a relative of one of those. And he also said the kind of makeups that I wanted to do, which were monsters and weird stuff. He said, those jobs are few and far between. And most of the time you're going to be mopping sweat off of some bitchy actress. And it was kind of like.

Trying to crush your dreams. Well, he kind of, it kind of did, but it also was like, you know what? Fuck you. I'm going to show you.

And, and I did. You definitely did. I mean, boy, was he wrong. Yeah. Turn'm going to show you. And I did. You definitely did. I mean, boy, was he wrong. Yeah. He turned out to be the greatest of all time. Well, I don't know about that. I think Dick Smith is the greatest of all time.

Well, you have to think that. I can't believe you didn't get the book. I'm sorry. I'm going to make sure you get it. Well, there's a picture of me. Wow. That was from a newspaper article in my local newspaper when I think I was a sophomore in high school. And that was the first time they called me Rick Baker Monster Maker.

That's from high school? Yeah. I think I was the third. No, I must have been like 14 or 15 or 16, something like that. Wow, man. You were committed to the path. Oh, I mean, my bedroom had, it was all masks. And, you know, did you ever do the Aurora model kits?

Yes, I did. Yeah. I mean, that was one of the big regrets that when I got married, I thought, well, I got to. Grow up. Yeah. Get rid of the models. I got rid of the models. And I've regretted it ever since.

Those were so cool. You could paint them. I remember those. I think I had a creature from the black lagoon one did they make a creature from the oh yeah they did yeah yeah that was that was an interesting film right because that was a that was a unique turn on makeup where they took this guy and they kind of put him in sort of like a scuba suit slash reptilian thing that was one of the cooler makeup works for the time it still is it's still one of the best men in the suit yeah really well done pull that up jamie creature from the black lagoon

that was like what was it 50s yeah and it that was the westmore regime uh jack pierce who did frankenstein the wolf man all the classic stuff was used old school techniques during a time when other people were doing foam rubber. And a new regime came in at Universal, and all of a sudden Jack got a pink slip. You know, you're out. You know, these movies. There it is. Yeah, very cool.

Yeah, go with the larger one in the lower left corner, Jamie, where you see the whole body. Yeah. I mean, what a cool design. It is. And it was designed by a woman, Millicent Patrick, who – She nailed it. She did, but she didn't get a lot of – I mean, Bud Westmore's regime got the credit for it.

But when the movie came out, when some – Look at that. Yeah. When some publicists found out that a woman designed it, it was – they did a whole kind of Beauty and the Beast campaign. And apparently Bud Westmore was furious. You know, he goes, it's my work. And he was famous for posing with other people's stuff. You know, I mean, uh, a very fine sculptor named Chris Mueller sculpted the creature's head

anyways. And I think he did the abdomen and some of the parts. And, and he also, um, sculpted the Metalunium mutant from this Island Earth, you know, the big, you know, and, uh, there's a, there's some pictures of Bud Westmore holding a really inappropriate sculpture tool next to the sculptures. Oh, no. And from what I heard, he would, whenever the publicist would come to take pictures, he would give everybody a day off or the afternoon off, and then he would go up to the lab and pose with that stuff.

Oh, Christ. Yeah. I hate hearing stories like that. It's so disappointing. You know, you want to think that all these people who take credit for all that work, they did the work. Yeah, and I tried to do that. And it's funny because, you know, so many people, I mean, I never wanted to be a businessman, you know, and I never even thought about that aspect of it, you know, that I'd have to have employees and all that, you know. Me neither.

And I hated that part. I mean, that was something I didn't care for. And I resisted being a businessman. I wasn't listed anywhere. My company wasn't listed. I didn't have a letterhead. I didn't have business cards. How the hell I didn't have an agent. How the hell I ever was successful, I don't know,

other than the fact that I worked hard and my work was pretty good. But, yeah, fortunately it all worked out for me, like I said. It certainly did. What was your first gig? What was the first professional gig that you got where it was like, holy shit, I'm getting paid to do makeup? Well, the first time I ever got paid, actually, I think I did a makeup for a stage actor who wanted to be old.

And I charged him $75, which was more money than I'd ever gotten from anything before. You just came up with a number in your head? Anyways, I did these pieces for him, and he lived off that Pasadena Freeway, that one that has the weird right-angled off-ramps, you know. And my dad drove me there because I couldn't, and I didn't drive at the time. And he actually had a makeup kit and had some hair pieces in it and a bunch of stuff. And he said, you know, I will trade you this. Instead of giving you $75, I'll this makeup case and with full of this stuff and i was like yeah that's really cool you know but my dad wanted to teach me you know responsibilities and stuff and this was around the time i i think i was like 16 and was going to try to drive and he goes your my insurance is going to go up and what

you have to do is you have to get that money and you have to give me the money for the rate of the insurance that's going up. It's like, oh man, I really want this makeup kit. But I mean, I had amazing parents who, I mean, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for them. I mean, they supported me in my crazy decision to make Monsters for a living. Well, they must have been so happy when it paid off though yeah i was glad that they lived long enough to see that and i got to bring my

parents to the oscars a few times oh wow yeah and and uh you know they were they were very proud and and uh and you know it was funny because i mean i had like my mom's uh brother and my uncle would you know say stuff like you know when is Ricky going to stop doing this silly stuff and do something he can make a living at, you know? And when is he going to grow up? Oh, those people. But, you know, my dad basically never grew up and I knew I never was going to, you know.

What was your dad, what did he do for a living? Well, he did a bunch of different things. He was a high school dropout because he had to help his family, his mother and father, you know, pay bills. And he had a variety of not very good jobs. He worked at Sears as a salesman.

He drove a truck. He did stuff. But he was always, he was very creative and it was kind of held down in his lifetime. You know, don't do that.

You can't do something you can make a living at. He didn't do Sears. And because of that, I benefited from that. He supported the creativity and when I, I think I was a sophomore

in high school, he decided he wanted to try to make a living as an artist. And we lived on my mom's bank teller salary for a number of years. He hardly made any money at all. But he was happy, you know. And he, because, I mean, like I said, he supported my creativity. And he was really my first teacher. He showed me what you could do with paint. He knew a little bit about sculpture.

He was also a fan of monster movies. And he saw The Friday March, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it came out and told me all about it. And that was a movie that they didn't have on TV that I really wanted to see. And he said when he saw it in the theaters, you know, he would hide his eyes or hide behind the seat, you know, and I so wanted to see that. And he also said, you know, War of the Worlds, the George Powell. Oh, yeah.

You know, go, that was so cool. And the sound effects were great. And, you know, that was never on either. And when I was in the seventh grade, I think it was, I decided to get on the student council for the main reason this was my plan. I suggested that we could raise money for the school by showing movies after school. We could rent 16-millimeter movies and show them and charge admission. And I basically just went through all the movies I hadn't seen that I wanted to see and got those. And there were maybe four or five people that showed up to see them, but I was happy.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. What was the first film that you did special effects for? First film was a film called The Octoman. And it's kind of a cult classic because it's such a crappy movie. It was shot in 10 days at Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park. What year was this? Let's see. at Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park. What year was this?

Let's see. I graduated from high school in 1969, and I went two years to a junior college, 69, 70, 71, I guess it was. So you went from that to Star Wars only like five or six years later, right? Yeah, something like that, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, and King Kong and all that.

Oh, that's right, yeah. There's the Octoman. The Octoman. I didn't's crazy. Yeah, and King Kong and all those guys. That's right, yeah. There's the Octoman. The Octoman. I didn't design it. Oh, my goodness. Look at that thing. Yeah. But, I mean, this was – I was a full-time student.

I had six weeks and, like, I think $1,000 to make this suit. And so I – after school, and I got my friend – the very first job I ever had, actually, and this, again, happened because of my dad. When he was a truck driver delivering plumbing supplies, he went to the wrong building. And the building he went into was called Cloaky Productions, and they made Gumby and Davey and Goliath stop-motion animation, which I did stop-motion as well. Big Ray Harryhausen fan. And for some reason, I grew up in Covina, which is east of L.A., like 30 or 40 miles. And there wasn't anything film-related out there, but for some reason, Cloakies was out there, I think because it was cheaper rent.

And he – I was – on my quarter-a-week allowance, when I found a place I could buy rubber, it was like eight, almost $9 for a quarter rubber. And, you know, it took me a lot of weeks and a lot of mowing lawns and a lot of stuff to save up that money. And I said, I need a job. So I didn't have a car. We only had one car in the family. And, you know, I went to any place I could walk to, supermarkets, you know, busboys, all this stuff. Nobody wanted me. And my dad said, oh, I remember this place. And it did stop motion.

And you'd stop motion, you know, maybe. So I went there with my box of stuff, you know. And it was summer vacation between my junior and senior year of high school. And they said, start tomorrow. Got paid minimum wage, which I think was, think was you know a dollar 25 or something at the time but that place was like a magnet for any weird kid or any kind it was like a stop motion fan any stop motion person would show up there at one point or another and i met this guy named doug bezwick who was a few years older than me and we became again fast friends you know he read

famous monsters he was a ray harryhausen fan and d Doug, when I did this Octoman film, Doug had a little workshop, and we did it in his workshop, and we did it together. Wow. But, yeah, it was a real introduction to the film industry because it was the very first days filming, filming in Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park. We show up. We went in Doug's 57 Chevy. It had Octoman in the back seat, you know, and we show up there and looking around, and there's nobody there.

And I go, what the hell? You know, so, and this is, you know, before cell phones and all that shit. So we'd have to go, we went back down the hill, down Bronson Canyon to, like, there was a market there, and we got a pay phone, called the production office, and it was like oh yeah uh we pushed one day we just forgot to tell you you know and it's like a movie called the octoman

you forgot to tell the people who were making the octoman the title character of the movie that you weren't filming you know and it was also i mean they that's a perfect introduction to the movie industry though oh it was and and i learned that, you know, you can't believe anything they tell you. You know, I mean, it was designed by somebody else. And I got this job handed down through people I met at Cloakies. It was going to be stop motion at one point. They decided that was too expensive. They're going to make a suit.

And the first thing I did was a little maquette. A little what? Maquette, a small sculpture of the design. Maquette. A little what? Maquette, a small sculpture of the design. But I said there's – because he had – they tried to figure out how they could do eight tentacles on a man. And his feet kind of like turned into tentacles and it kind of split off into a back tentacle.

But I said I think they look like elf shoes. And it's not a good way for me to join the two things together. And it's like, kid, don't worry about it. There's only going to be one shot of the Octoman in the movie where you actually see it. The rest of the time, it's just going to be a shadow or a glimpse, you know. But we'll have a money shot where you can, you know, make sure it looks great.

The movie starts out with a close-up of his feet, you know, basically, you know. And, you know, it was a real introduction. I thought it was going to be like working on eight millimeter movies like I did as a kid. Everybody just jumps in and we're making a movie. Let's do it. Right. Yeah, it wasn't that.

The DP, the director of photography, because I had long hair and Doug had long hair, he called us the girls. This was at a time when long hair was – Get the girls to get their silly monster suit out, you know. Oh, great. But we, there was a, if you can believe this, the Octoman was written by the guy who was the writer of Creature from the Black Lagoon. And he also wrote It Came from Outer Space. Ah. So it was basically those two scripts combined with ecology thrown in. And

he, we, you know, it was like, there's this day where instead of in, you know, in the creature, they put a log across the lagoon and they can't get out. You know, here it was a log across the street and they're driving in Winnebago and they can't get out. They get out to try to get the log out, and they open the Winnebago door, and the octoman's in there. And he knocks a guy down, and then the other guy's supposed to pick up the log and throw it at the octoman. And I go, you know, where's the prop log that we're going to use? And, you know, he goes, well, it's that. And I go, that's a tree limb. You know, I go, that's going to hurt the guy guy in the suit and it's going to hurt the suit.

And I go, and we're going to rehearse this, right? And he goes, no, we don't have time to rehearse it. And I go, when he – the octorman is supposed to bend over and pick up the – Pier Angeli, who was the female lead who killed herself after this movie, can tell you how good the movie was. I said, when he goes to pick her up, let's cut there because if you cut, I can wrap the tentacles around her and it'll look more like he's holding her. So anyways, they start filming without rehearsing.

Octoman opens the door, knocks a guy down. The guy picks up a log, throws it at the Octoman, hits him, rips the suit. He goes walking over and he's virtually blind. He's looking out at two little holes out this far away. It was a real claustrophobic suit. The poor guy, Reed Morgan, who played the Octoman, was great to deal with, but it was a very hard suit to wear. He goes to pick up Pier Angeli. Nobody says cut, so he picks her up.

So walking around, the guy who he knocked on the ground is laying on the ground, spread eagle. He ends up stepping right on his nuts. Oh. Falls over backwards, throws Pier Angeli up against the Winnebago. She's crying, says he wants her mother. The other guy's holding her nuts. The other guy broke his hand because a log fell on his hand. And everybody's screaming.

I'm going, you ripped my suit. And we lost a day out of our 10-day shooting schedule. So Harry Essex, who was the director and writer, was tearing pages out of the script like this. Just, we don't need this, we don't need this, we don't need this. And then when they tried to make a movie out of it, it made no sense. I mean, I think the first 20 minutes are stock footage. In the beginning, there was nothing.

And then, you know, then there was slime. And then, you know, the whole. I can't wait to watch it. Oh, no. I think it's in public domain now. I think it's on YouTube. But there's a Blu-ray out of it as well. I might have to fire up a joint and watch that one.

Now, when you look back on that, even though it sounds like a clusterfuck, it seems like it's kind of a fond memory as well because that was where it started. It was. You got to see how much nonsense there is in the movie industry, but you also got a chance to get going. Yeah, and I got... It was. And it's what I had to do so many times in films, do things that people hadn't done before on a budget and a schedule, you know, and try to figure out. And that's part of the fun.

But what was cool about the Octoman, the male lead was Kerwin Matthews, who was Sinbad in the seventh Voyager, Sinbad, which I get a where the Octoman's tentacle is supposed to creep through this cave opening. And they basically wadded up some tar paper. And I stood behind the tar paper in Bronson Caves and stuck my hand in this tentacle and did this. And when Kerwin walked by, I said, super dynamation, which is what Ray Harryhausen's technique he called for a few films. And he goes, oh, you know about that. So I thought that was really cool. My kids found out about Harryhausen from Monsters, Inc. And they were like, who's that?

Who's Harryhausen? And I said, well, he's the guy that made all the early monster movies. And so then we sat down and we watched King Kong together. And they were scared at first. They're like, oh, my God, I'm scared. But they started laughing when they saw king kong the stop motion yeah i mean it's it's today in comparison to you know even comparison to your version of king kong when you could you know make it mechanized and you know it's just it's it's amazing when you think about how far we came but you know the yes the stop

motion and and harry hasen didn't animate on king Kong. He did Mighty Joe Young. Oh, okay. But King Kong is what inspired him. That was Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson who were the animators on that. He did – what was the one with Medusa? Did he do that one? Harryhausen, yeah. Yes. Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans, right.

That was him, right? Well, again, and Ray was a one-man show. In stop motion, it's 24 frames a second. He did it all himself all himself and when you're animating seven skeleton jason the argonauts there's seven skeletons fighting seven guys he did all that himself himself and i became i became friends with ray and wow and i would say to him and and this was during the time when computer stuff was starting out you know and you know his movies were fifty thousand dollar movies you know you know the whole budget of the movie you know just as facts in the early ones that he did, you know.

And I said, you know, doesn't it piss you off that now they get millions of dollars and there's hundreds of people working on stuff that you did by yourself, you know. Well, they could never take away his legacy, though. Oh, no. even though he did it all, but he was not just a groundbreaker, but he's the guy. When you think about stop motion films and horror films, he's the guy that you think of. You've pulled up Jason and the Argonaut skeleton scene. I can't believe he did that all himself because that's a very, very detailed and intricate scene. No, because you have to match what they're doing. Yes.

I mean, and, you know, you're in a room by yourself, you know, moving a fraction of an inch, a puppet at a time, you know, and it takes forever, you know, and I mean, having, if you've never done stop motion, you can't appreciate it. Oh, my God. What year was this? I'm not sure exactly. And look, they pop out of the ground. It's a great Bernard Herrmann music in this.

You know, he always had the terrific scores in his films as well. And again, he was a fan. He was a fanboy who made a living doing something that he loved. And imagine being the actors and having to sort of respond to all this. Yeah. To these skeletons that are popping out of the ground with shields and swords. Which aren't there. Which aren't there, yeah.

Which came months later. Yeah. Okay, you've seen the skeleton now. Yeah. You're scared. He's going to take your soul. Well, Ray would kind of direct those scenes because most directors don't know what to do with that kind of stuff.

Sure, yeah. But he was, you know, what I thought was great about Ray is like so many artists aren't appreciated until after they're gone. You know, Ray saw the impact he had. I mean, I went to his 90th birthday celebration in England. The British Film Academy did this great tribute to Ray. And everybody showed up. I mean, Peter Jackson came, you know, people who didn't show up sent videos, Steven Spielberg sent a video,

Jim Cameron did, all talking about how much Ray's films and Ray's work influenced them. And it was really great, you know, and it's so nice that he was able to be appreciated like that in his lifetime. And now i'm actually i mean the funny thing is i'm getting that now with this with my book that's come out people are just going oh my god you're i love you so much and the stuff you've done it's just you know it's nice to know that you you know i i served a purpose in my life you know you you served a giant purpose and you served a big purpose in my life man like i said i'm i'm such a huge fan of your work and when you look back

like what was the first thing that you did where you like okay that was a good one well you know it's funny once you do something and you look at it you see all the things are wrong with it you know and and i always say i wish i could see the film before i make this stuff because so many times the thing that's supposed to be the most important thing just isn't and something that you like threw together is all of a sudden the most important thing. I mean, American Werewolf was probably the one where, I mean, that's one that really put me on the map. I mean, a lot of people say King Kong was,

but American Werewolf, you know, I looked at it and I thought, well, that's pretty cool, you know, but I also went, God, I wish we did this and I wish I didn't do that, you know, and I see so well, that's pretty cool. But I also went, God, I wish we did this and I wish I didn't do that. I see so many things that I would do differently now. That movie's a masterpiece. It's a great film. It's a great film.

My second film was Schlock, which was John Landis' first film. I was 20 and he was 21. And I had, again, I think I had six weeks and I think I had $1,000, again, to make. John played the schlockthropist. I don't know if you've ever seen schlockthropist. No, never saw it. That's another one you gotta watch. Low budget, you know, movie shot by a kid, basically, you know.

With a, you know, and he, like I said, he played this. It was based, have you ever seen Trog? Yes. Joan Crawford did. Yes. He saw Trog and couldn't believe that they made this movie so he was making like a joke a joke version of Schlock you know um uh and uh he wanted to play this ape man character and it's like well okay you know but you're going to be the director too so you know he had to be on set at six in the

morning whether Schlock worked or not, all made up, you know. And it was shot in three weeks, and John and I were going on two hours sleep a night. You know, I would make him up. We were out in Agoura, where it used to be an Oakwood school where John went for a while and I think was thrown out of. And we lived and worked in this, like, screened-in patio that was left over in this dilapidated building. And I was making up John on a bar stool. And eventually he was like falling asleep and doing that thing, you know, and I'd have to grab him. But for some reason, they were doing the dailies at MGM.

So we would have to go from after a 12-hour day of filming and, you know, an hour removing the makeup. We'd get in the car, drive to MGM, look at the previous day's dailies, drive back, sleep for two hours, get up and start again. Oh, my God. And it was during a heat wave in Agoura. And the first day, John had the suit on all day,

and I was combing it and brushing it, and the hair was just falling out in handfuls. And I went, oh, my God. My second film of my career is over. I was staying up all night with a hairdryer trying to dry the suit out so I could glue more hair on it. But it's actually kind of a cool makeup and kind of a fun character. And John had already written American Werewolf. And he said, my next film is going to be American Werewolf.

He wrote that by the time he was 21? He was 20 when he wrote it. Wow. And he goes, it's going to be my next film. And he said, I want to do a transformation in a way that had never been done before. It doesn't make sense to me that a man changing in his body going through this metamorphosis would sit in a chair like Lon Chaney Jr. and be still until he finished changing. Because I think it would be painful. And I want him to be able to move.

And I want to show the pain. And, you know, how would you do that? And I go, I have no fucking be painful. And I want him to be able to move. And I want to show the pain. And how would you do that? And I go, I have no fucking idea. But I would love to. Because we both love those transformation scenes. Pull that transformation scene up. The initial transformation scene is so fucking awesome. Because I remember seeing it in the theater.

What year was this? 1981, I think it was. OK. So I was 14 years old. I was in high school. And I remember seeing this in the theater. What year was this? 1981, I think it was. Okay, so I was 14 years old. I was in high school, and I remember seeing this in the movie theater. And this was another one that sort of cemented the idea that I wanted to be a makeup artist. When he pulls all his clothes off, and he's burning up, and then he looks at his hand, and his hand starts stretching out.

That was incredible. This was just such a different werewolf, too. Everything about it was different yeah well again and i credit john for that and he also said you know i want to do it in a brightly lit room it's not going to have horror film lighting it's going to be real you know how did you do this how did you we call it a change-o hand it's actually a fake hand we storyboarded the whole sequence and that's a different fake hand there that's the second one right and that's another one there it's got syringes in it that we pump.

Now he's wearing an appliance hand that matches that. And we storyboarded the whole sequence. And as you saw when David first took off his clothes, he's not very hairy. Right. And I said, for me to glue a little bit of hair on and then we do him a little hairier and a little hairier, it's better for us to work in reverse. Let me do him in the hairiest first. Now pull hair off and trim it. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. But we boarded the whole thing out. And this hair growing was reverse. I punched hair through rubber and then pulled it through and we reverse printed it. So it looked like this. Oh. This is a whole fake back again with things coming out of it. So you punched hair through rubber and pulled it through and then reversed it.

So then it grows out like that. Oh, wow. But what I, we thought what would be the most impactful thing would be for his face to change last. But what I don't like about the transformation, like here, the wolf has a big mane of hair. So he's got this big hairy neck that I don't like, you know, and it's you know uh that's david doesn't have lenses and his eyes were just red from that was a 10 hour day of makeup so just exhausted and with makeup on yeah this was incredible man that's crazy that he doesn't have any eyes he doesn't have anything in

his eyes that's just his eyes yeah holy shit um but yeah this is the first stage change-o head so this is a rubber head that had mechanisms that push it out. And this is a second stage change-o-head that stretches out like that. The thing that was interesting, because I was 30 when I did this. It was at a time when there weren't people that did this kind of work. There were just a few in Hollywood, like John Chambers who did Planet of the Apes. But for me to find a crew, I hired kids that sent me fan mail. I was a kid from Texas that sent me fan mail, another kid from Connecticut,

and they were like 18. Wow. I mean, I had a crew of like basically 18-year-olds and me. It was like, I think, six of us who did this film, you know, 30 however many years ago. I'm not good at math. It still looks pretty decent fucking awesome not just pretty decent i mean there's a reason why i have the american werewolf

the pat mcgee version of it sitting there in the front but now i have to call pat and tell him the legs are off what's wrong with the legs they're too stretched out and too long it you know we actually that was the problem because i didn't know how i was going to make this four-legged wolf work yeah and uh i thought well i'll figure out something and it came to me one night i thought i remember as a kid uh you ever do that wheelbarrow race thing where somebody holds your feet and you're walking on your hands you know i thought well if we do something like that and have like puppeteered legs in the back so if the reality is if you really see the the full wolf there's feet sticking out of his ass he's got uh two legs

sticking out but we had him like's got two legs sticking out. But we had him like on a platform with wheels. And the back legs were puppeteered with little rods. So you never – and the back legs come in. That's when you cut. Right, right, right. And a lot of the stuff like in Piccadilly Circus and the big bus crash and stuff. Yes. That's me in a wheelchair with a head with John pushing me down the street.

Wow. That was a great scene. God, that was a great scene. The werewolf comes bursting out of the porno theater. The porno theater. Yeah. Bites the guy in the head. That script, I think, was the only script that I've worked on in my entire career.

The script that I read was basically the script we made. The only difference was when John wrote the script originally, that Aero Cinema in Piccadilly Circus was a cartoon cinema. And in the original script, it was a cartoon cinema. But when we got there, it was a porno cinema.

So he changed that scene, you know, to a porno cinema. Other than that, the script is basically verbatim what he wrote as a 20-year-old. And his use of music and everything was groundbreaking at the time. People didn't do like the way he did.

And his friend that music and everything was groundbreaking at the time. People didn't do like the way he did. And his friend that kept returning. Jack. More and more rotten every time. Like that was a genius idea as well. Like that Jack had explained to him, like, hey, man, you got to kill yourself. You're a werewolf. You're going to kill a bunch of people. Yeah.

Like it was so, everything about it was so unique. It completely flipped the whole idea of what a werewolf movie was on its head yeah and and and it worked you know and griffin who who played jack when i first made him up in that makeup uh he as i was putting the stuff on you know in the makeup chair he's kind of like getting more and more sad and like sinking down in the chair and and it's like what's wrong griffin is something wrong and he goes look at me you know yeah he goes uh look at me this is my big break and i mean i mean my throat's torn out and i mean nobody's gonna look at me you know and it's like did you read the script yeah didn't it say your throat was torn out yeah but i didn't i didn't think it

would look like this and he go i did you know and that's what john thought it should he was bummed out well he was bummed out? Well, he was at first. Because it's disturbing to see. But it's a great role. Yeah, I know. And he was brilliant. And he was terrific to work with.

But the initial shock of seeing himself torn up, it was hard for him to take. Because it's so realistic. Yeah. But I thought, OK, I've got to call. John was in England already scouting locations. And so I said, you you got to talk to Griffin. He's kind of upset about what he looks like. But I took that opportunity, being the sensitive guy that I am, to tell him that the third part of his transformation was he was actually going to be a puppet.

It wasn't really going to be him because he was supposed to become basically a talking skeleton. And the makeup process is an additive process. And he would have to be a huge skull to look right. And he wasn't too happy about that either. But I said, but I want you to operate the mouth because you're doing the lips

sync. You're doing the voice. So he operated a puppet. But he turned out to be a great guy. And I thought he was brilliant in the film. sink you know you're you're doing the voice and you you know so he operated a puppet but he he turned out to be a great guy you know and and and he i thought he was brilliant in the film and and you know the whole film you know the film's amazing and it's funny too that's one of the things that's interesting about the film it's like it's silly but horrific like the violence and the the the the explosive scenes of the werewolf ripping people apart. But then some of it is hilarious. Well, that whole sequence in the porno theater with all the dead people.

I mean, when we were filming it, I was kind of going, is this funny? Was this going to work? It was funny. It was a welcome sort of comic relief from the graphic horror of the werewolf tearing people apart. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think it's a brilliant film. It's a brilliant film. And it changed my life.

I mean, I got my first Oscar for that film, you know. And, I mean, so fortunate to me that John came into my life. And this happened, again, because of Don Post Studios that I talked about, where they made the Halloween masks. John was a mailboy at Fox for a while, and he knew John Chambers. He would deliver mail to John Chambers who did the Planet of the Apes makeup. And he talked to John Chambers at first about doing Schlock. And John said, well, I need $250,000.

And the budget of the whole film, I think, was $30,000. So I think he basically didn't want to deal with this hyperactive kid you know and so he sent him to don post studios and don post uh you know said well same thing and they didn't really want to deal with his kid and and they had it would be way too much money you know right but they said there's a kid who comes in here and buys material i used to go there to buy materials because in those days now there are stores that sell all the supplies that you need. Right. I used to have to drive all over California to get what I need. And some stuff, they would only sell you in a 55-gallon drum, which I couldn't afford.

Like polyurethane foam, which is a two-part foam that foams up, a chemical reaction that foams it up. Makes cyanide gas when it foams, which nobody told me. You know, but Don Post would, you know, pour some in a can. You go, here you go, kid. You know, and first time I used it in my bedroom, I practically died. Really? Yeah.

And I have a real strong, I have a very strong allergic reaction to it now. Because of that? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, my throat closed up. I could hardly breathe. Whoa. And I didn't know what was going on. And I found out what it was. But Don. It's cyanide. Jesus. Yeah. because of that yeah wow yeah i mean my throat closed up i could hardly breathe and whoa and

i didn't know what was going on and i found out what it was but don cyanide jesus yeah but because of that because i left that that's the only time in my life i actually had a business card you know and john says you know it said rick baker monster maker but i think it's a rick baker makeup artist you know but i gave a card and some pictures to don post and when they were trying to get rid of this kid who wanted a funky gorilla suit thing, you know, they said, well, this guy's made some gorilla suits. Why don't you talk to him? And John lived in Westwood near the cemetery there, the veteran cemetery. He drove out to Covina. And again, I was still pretty shy at that point in my bedroom at that point was, you know, I had, I slept on a convertible sofa because I had gotten enough money to buy one so I could

fold it up and have more floor space to work but my masks and my head work tables everywhere you know and and John is very loud and and and and hyperactive and and he was coming in and he was flipping out over the stuff that I made you know and like touching it and stuff and I'm going oh it's like this guy's in my room he's touching stuff, and he's really scaring me. But I mean, thank God. I mean, American Werewolf put me on the map. And I mean, I did Coming to America, and my introduction to Eddie Murphy. And I did a lot of films with Eddie.

And because of John, I actually met my wife, Sylvia, on a John Landis film where he had me play a – originally it was a Jesus Freak. It was a film called Into the Night. And it was all filmed at night. And I met my wife on Hollywood Boulevard in front of Frederick's in Hollywood in the middle of the night. And it turned out they changed it to a dope dealer. I was playing a dope dealer. And Sylvia was the hairstylist on the film. And John came in and says, I want you to be in the movie. I want you to play the part you were born to play, a hook dealer. I was playing a dope dealer and Sylvia was the hairstylist on the film. And John came in and says, I want you to be in the movie. I want you to play the part you were

born to play, a hooker. So my wife was a hooker in the background, you know, and there's a picture of us. It's in the book actually on the night we met in front of Fredericks of Hollywood. Oh, that's cool. And, you know, now we have two amazing children and a great life. And I owe John a lot. Well, you and John made magic. You really did. I mean, that movie was so good.

And as we said, one of the things about that film is it was so strategic in its use of the werewolf. You know, that you really, when you got a chance to see it. Like one of my favorite scenes was when the guy, the businessman is in the subway. And he running away from the werewolf and you know it's chasing him, but you don't see it. And you don't see it until he's stumbling on the escalator and then you see it at the bottom of the escalator just for a second. Just walking into the frame. Just walking into the frame and you're like, fuck yeah. And they cut right before you see his feet sticking out of his ass. Yes.

Well, that was the thing with the design of the werewolf as well because John said he wasn't going to show it. with the design of the werewolf as well because because john said he wasn't going to show it i normally you would when you do something that's going to be an animatronic character you kind of sculpt it in a neutral position and you let the mechanism uh make the expressions but uh from my experience in other films the editor doesn't necessarily choose the moment where you think it's the best expression you know and i thought if it's only going to be on for a second i want it to be scary looking so i sculpted in a scary expression on it which i normally wouldn't do uh i just so there was no way that it wasn't going to look scary right right right snarling yeah was that was that the case with the cantina scene in star wars because the star wars scene um there's that's that's a crazy scene because you've got so many

characters in that scene. And today, when you go back and look at it, like- It's pretty cheesy. You see masks. Yeah. Well, that came about, originally, the film was done in England. Nobody knew Star Wars was going to be Star Wars. Stuart Freeborn was the makeup artist in the film. He did the Wookiee. He did the Cantina scene originally, but George wanted to embellish on it and didn't like a lot of the stuff that he did.

So at ILM, which was in Van Nuys then, Industrial Light and Magic, when it first started, the guys that were doing the visual effects for that, for Star Wars, my friends that I met at Cloakies, Dennis Murin and Ken Ralston, were shooting the special effects. And George came in and said, do you know anybody that can make a mask?

Because I want to add some masks to the cantina scene. And they go, yeah, we do. So they called me in. So I went over to Valjean Avenue in Georgia on a flatbed. The editor showed me the sequence as it existed. And I was flipping out. I was like, what a cool idea to have this bar full of aliens you know and go let's do you know let's do we could do one that has like you know like

that's kind of like a alien pirate that's got a like alien parrot character and this stuff he goes well we don't have any money you know it's like you know we've already spent the money you know we don't have a lot of money for this i just just want masks, you know? And I said, well, I, you know what? I have a bunch of stuff I made myself for fun that we can throw in there. That there's a devil guy that I made that five years before star Wars, you know, there's a werewolf guy and another guy with glowy eyes. I made those before star Wars. I just said,

you can use them. I thought they were going to be stuck in the background, you know, and, but we did like the cantina band, you know, the first, the first aliens that you see, almost all the first aliens you see are the ones that we did.

I think we did 30. And, but what was great. Yeah. That was one of the masks I made before. He's good. Jamie's the best. Yeah. Play that, Jamie.

Yeah. That was such a great scene too, though. These are Stuart Freeborn's things, you you know but the thing that's great the cantina band was never there and when you see the movie you think it's there and i've used this so many times where i say can we shoot this like in post-production that's the devil guy yeah and these guys were the guys that we one of the guys some of the guys we shot the alien band and post yeah and in los angeles in a by different people at a different time and i've said to you know when i say to people let's can we shoot this in post and because what happens you know most directors don't like dealing with this this shit you know and they'll put it off to the last shot of the day and then it's like well you got 45 minutes and i go but this is the money shot

you know and i prepared for months for this and you're giving me 45 minutes to do this it's not right you know let's shoot in post-production well that'll never work it'll never match it's like did you see star wars yeah you know the band that's in the cantina yeah that was shot by different people in a different country months later did you know that no you know it's like you think they're there you hear the music that they're playing through the scene you know uh no you know it's like you think they're there you hear the music that they're playing through the scene you know uh these are some of our aliens those two guys the blue guys and um as is that werewolf and then uh that was the only one that looked like a mask well yeah i mean i think i think they all look like masks we made that guy and that mask in the

background was one of mine that i had before too too. But yeah. It was such a great scene. Again, it was a great idea. And people, I did not make that one. That was on Stewart's. People think of it fondly, you know, and it's more that it's a great idea than the work is great. Yeah, well, it was a great conglomeration of cool characters all in one bar. And, you know, at the time, it was completely unique and new things. Oh, yeah.

But after that, every movie, every space movie had a cantina scene, you know. And it's like American Werewolf, too. Every transformation after American Werewolf was basically the same transformation. They did the same things, you know. And it happened on Thriller, too. You know, I mean, I, because of American Werewolf, when Michael came to John Landis to do Thriller, you know, he liked American Werewolf and he wanted to do, he wanted it to be a short film. He didn't want to call it a music video. And John contacted me and said, you know, Michael Jackson wants to do this American Werewolf-like music video, you know, for the song Thriller, which I hadn't heard. It was like, Michael Jackson,

Little Michael Jackson, Jackson 5. Yeah, he's not called that anymore. So he goes, John says, I'll send you a cassette. Listen to it and get some ideas. This was when we had Little Walkman. I'd listen to it with one. I had another one that I would free associate

ideas when I was listening. And it was like I thought, well, we came up with the idea of doing these zombie dancers. And I said, well, I'm sure you're going to hire the dancers way in advance so they can learn the dance and stuff. And he goes, no, they only need a couple of days. So they hired him like three days before we filmed. And I went, I can't, that doesn't give me time to take life masks and do all the stuff that I would do. And these zombies should be really cool, you know. So I said, how about if the first zombies you see are like me and my crew,

because we already have life masks, we can start those today. And we can spend the time on making some cool ones. So I'm in Thriller coming out of a crypt like this, you know. And all my crew basically are the first guys that come out of the ground and break through windows. But the dancers I said I'll figure out a way we can do them because I had a number of

life masks of different people small, medium, large, male, small, medium, large female and we sculpted we kept pieces, we called them like bandit masks. They were kind of like this around this area like a bandit in a… Right, around the eyes, like a raccoon mask. Yeah, and it didn't have the nose on it because, you know, proportionally you could get away with more.

So we had different sculptures of small, medium, large male, small, medium, large female that we would just say, okay, you're a medium male number two. And we made these big teeth that we could pop in their mouth and put some denturerolining material and fit them so the dancer makeups were not as good as the more featured makeup but michael in the upper left hand corner that one jamie were the eyes yeah look at that like that was excellent and again we kept it that way but what happened is the zombies after that everybody was just doing pieces like this i only did it like that because of the limitations I had in that thing, you know. But that was, I mean, that was another really quick job and very little money. Thriller was very little money? For me.

It turned, I mean, they spent the money, they had a lot of cameras and a lot of stuff when they're filming. But it, I was, you know, working day and night night every day of the week to get this stuff done. And John then surprised me with the making of thriller on the day that Michael was coming out for us to take his life mask and make a cast of his face. He goes, oh, there's going to be a camera crew here, a couple of cameras. And what are you talking about? He goes, I want to do a making of. And I go, I was going to know, you know, it's like, it always looks horrifying to see somebody

having a life mask taken. Right. And I go, I don't, no, it's like, it always looks horrifying to see somebody having a life mask taken. Right. And I go, I don't need, and Michael's really shy. I don't need, we don't need this. I don't, I don't, I don't want this. He goes, shut up. We're doing it. You know, it's like, fuck, you know, I was not happy about it.

But then so many people have come up to me who are makeup artists now and go, the reason I'm a makeup artist is because I saw the making of thriller and and inspired me that to do this you know and my stock answer is uh you thought that if this idiot could do it i can do it you know well there was a time where music videos were a new thing and then thriller changed what a music video is it it was so huge. It was a world premiere event that was on MTV. And it's so hard for kids today to understand what that means. But we were all gathered around the TV waiting for the Michael Jackson

thriller world premiere. And it premiered and it changed what a music video is. Then all of a sudden it became this film. And it was really cool because like Michael Jackson was this sweet guy

and he's on a date with this beautiful girl and the next thing you know he's a fucking werecat or whatever he was. Was that supposed to be a cat? Yeah. He wanted to be a werewolf

and I just thought, you know, I don't think he should be a werewolf and I thought something feline would fit him better, you know. And I originally did like a Black Panther and then I was afraid of the Black Panther, you know and i originally did a like a black panther and

then i was afraid of the black panther you know that i didn't want him to be associated with the black panthers you know what i mean the political yeah yeah so i then became more of fantasy i gave it longer hair and like white strings see if you find his transformation to the cat because it was reminiscent and somewhat of american world but cool and unique in its own way well again we didn't we didn't have the time to yeah you know i wasn't sure what it was i was like is that a cat isn't a werewolf is that yeah well that's what people call the werewolf sometimes people call it a cat i said you know yeah i just you know thought it was cool looking you know it was definitely cool looking whatever it was but you know what happened i mean the thriller was

like work work work work work and originally it was going to be my my crew were going to be the guys that do the makeups and they were all non-union and it at the last minute became a union production so i had to hire union makeup artists and there were many to do the dancers and many of them were people i didn't know and there weren't a lot of people that were good at this stuff um yeah that's again we had a little bladders in his hand. There's actually an American Werewolf hand in here at one point, I think. Oh, really? Yeah.

You had a left over hand? Yeah, that's a nail growing thing. It was from American Werewolf. And then you did a similar thing with the ears. Yeah. And then he had the whiskers. Yeah. Yeah, it's like...

Yeah, it's before his hair grew a little silly, but... But when you look at that, you're like, what is that? Yeah. Is that a cat? Whatever it is, it's cool. Yeah. But he, it was an amazing experience because, you know, I was, like I said, I was really stressed out the day that we were filming the dancers and I was, I had to make up Michael

as a zombie. I had a number of makeup artists I didn't even know and hadn't worked before with before that were doing other zombies and I'm running through trailers going, no, no, no, like this, you know, and then making up Michael and it's like, oh man. through trailers going no no no like this you know and then making up michael and it's like oh man and we were filming in vernon downtown los angeles next to the former john meat packing place and they just slaughtered the animals and it had this weird smell in the air and then the dance started and i all of a sudden it just like this wave went over me of just the stress went away and i just was looking at what was happening in front of me.

And I was going, oh, my God, look at this. And people would pay money to see this. And I get to see this. I saw the swill dance happening for the first time there when it was being filmed. How many times did they shoot it? Not that many, I don't think. But I think there were six cameras on it. The whole street in front of it was filled with cameras.

But the other thing that was so cool about it, that was one of the dancer makeups. Michael, when we were doing, in pre-production, Michael did a Motown special that was on television where he moonwalked for the first time. And nobody had seen the moonwalk. And I didn't see it. I was busy working. But one of my crew who went home at night and recorded it, and he goes, you're not going to believe this. It's the same kid that was in our makeup chair the other day.

Because Michael's very shy as well. Really meek and quiet in person. And he's so dynamic on stage, you know. And he's like two different people. I mean, when Michael's performing, he's incredible, you know. Yeah, he was a, I mean, to say he was unique is the biggest understatement in the history of the world. Yeah. But this whole scene with him when he becomes a zombie, it was so bizarre, too.

It's like, even the dancing was so strange, you know. It was cool, though. Oh, it was really cool. And to see it live for the first time, you know, out in the cold with the... But they don't do anything like this anymore. I mean, really, it doesn't happen. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny.

Like you've said a number of times, I try to explain to my daughters that, you know, we had television, but you... I had a TV guide. I would look at every page and try to find when a monster movie is going to be on and have to watch it then or I couldn't see it. And if I wanted to see it again, I would have to wait a year or whatever. There wasn't an internet. I had to go to the library to find books on makeup, which there weren't very many.

Now there's all these YouTube videos. I even have some. But it's a different world. I mean, the information isn't as available. And you't, you know, you couldn't just call up. Let's see Thriller, you know. Now, when you did The Wolfman, was there a push to do some sort of CGI version of that? Was it, did you have to, like, was there a discussion about how to do it? I expected that it would do it CGI because everything at that time was basically CGI.

And I had a friend that got a copy of the script and I read it and it read like a CGI thing. And I was actually filming at Universal. We were filming some of the Norbit stuff at Universal. And I went to a producer there that I knew who was a visual effects producer as well, and I asked him if he knew anything about The Wolfman, because I said, I'd love to do this. That's one of the films that made me do what I do.

And I said, is it going to be CG? And he goes, no, actually, they were talking about it being a makeup. And I go, well, will you put my name in there? I'd love to do this. So the original director wanted it to being a makeup. And I go, well, will you put my name in there? You know, I would love to do this. So the original director wanted it to be a makeup. And I thought we were going to do transformation. We actually built stuff for a transformation. It was a weird film in so many ways.

It seemed like, you know, Benicio was great to work with. He wanted to be the wolf man, you know. He's a monster, a real monster kid, too, you know. Anthony Hopkins was great, you know. I did it with my friends Dave and Lou Elsie. But I think we were the only people that wanted to be working on a movie called The Wolf Man. I mean, I think everybody else was embarrassed that they were working on a movie called The Wolf Man. Really?

Yeah. And they would do things. The production manager called me into the office once and said, what is this? Why are you buying all this hair? What is this hair for? I go, seriously? Why do you need this hair? And he had a big, behind his desk, he had a big sign that said wolf man.

And I went and covered it up. And I'll cover up the wolf part with my hands. I go, right now we have this, a man. I'm going to make him a wolf man. And I need hair for that. He goes, why do you need hair? Because wolves have fur. I was like, what the fuck?

I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you. He goes, well, I mean, do you need all of that hair? You know what I mean? And it was like that through the whole movie. It's just so embarrassing that you have to talk to someone like that. I know. That they don't just let you do whatever you do. I know.

And I think people who are in the industry who have to deal with this stuff all the time to think that I never have to, you know.

Right. It happens all the time, you know. It seems like everybody has to. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean,

it was very frustrating, but again, Dave and Lou Elsie and I, we had, we'd work day and night and when everybody was gone,

we had the best time, you know, like we're working on a Wolfman movie, you know, and when we first filmed the sequence in the gypsy camp where there's all these gypsies and and fog and and stuff it's like yeah yeah that was cool man movie you know that's what was it was very reminiscent of the old movies but like a new version of the old movies yeah with

the fog and the gypsy camp and all that jazz. It was really similar to the original Lon Chaney. Yeah. And it's also had a kind of junior. Yeah. And it had kind of a hammer film feel to it too, you know, and we, and Anthony Hopkins makeup was,

it was, you know, a little more, uh, curse the werewolf Christopher, uh, uh, not Christopher.

I was going to say Christopher, the, uh, what was his name? Oliver Reed who played, um, had that, that kind of feel to it. And, and I going to say Christopher Lee, what was his name, Oliver Reed, who played that, had that kind of feel to it. And I mean, like I said, Benicio is a real big fan

of the horror films, and we got along great. In fact, he would come into the makeup trailer with old monster magazines that he bought on the internet, and there he is. And he would quiz me on stuff, you know. What he would quiz me on stuff.

You know, what's this? I knew everything. I knew everything on every page. We became, we connected, we bonded over that. The scene where he makes the transformation in the medical theater, that was a great scene. It's all CG though. Is that all CG?

It's all CG. Oh, no. It's based a lot on ideas that I had. Because what I said, because they said, well, we've got to do the great transformation like American Werewolf. And I said, American Werewolf, we had a naked man who changed into a four-legged hound from hell. Here we have Benicio del Toro, and we have Benicio del Toro with some hair on his face and some teeth. We can't, the changes aren't the same. We can't stretch out his body we

can't right you know uh well we wouldn't have that same kind of feel so i said well how about if we do things where his fingers twist and do uncomfortable things and stuff like that right but we actually made a lot of stuff but it's so weird i mean like the production we weren't even invited to the set when they did the transformation even though we had stuff they didn't want you to go they didn't want me there why is that i don't know they didn't want your input uh you know i guess even though it's a lot of the what's in there is based on some animatics that i did and some drawings and stuff but um it was a really weird deal i mean it's like we were the unwanted children in that movie you know that's so crazy

for me to hear something like that it's so it's stunning because i would have assumed that in my eyes you're hollywood royalty like you're the guy who made american werewolf in london you're the guy who made so many of these incredible movies with makeup and special effects i would think they'd be pumped that you were there well yeah i yeah, I thought that too, but it wasn't the case. But, you know, something interesting, when I read this book on my career, I complained too much about the film industry, and I shouldn't because it's been really good to me. I mean, like I said, it was my hobby, and I made a decent living at it,

and I got awards for it, and I got free food and things, you know. And it is magic. Keep that rolling. It's like time traveling, like working on this movie. When we're in London in areas that haven't changed since the 1800s, and you have all these people in period costumes, it really is like your time travel, you know. And you get to work with some really amazing people. Yeah, see, this is all CG. Really well done get to work with some really amazing people. Yeah. See, this is all CG. Really well done, CG.

It's really well done. Yeah. And Steve Begg, who was the visual effects supervisor, was a really great guy. And he was really upset that we weren't able to do this stuff as well. But I think they did a terrific job. And I, you know, I like CG to a degree. I mean, I like the fact that it's another technique that we can use to do things that we can't do in the real world with rubber. I just don't like

that they do things when we can do it, you know. And I think a lot of it comes down to, before American Werewolf, I would have to try to beg people to let me do something I mean it was like can I put a mustache and a scar on this guy you know and uh after American Werewolf I would get scripts with stuff in it I had no idea how the hell I was going to do and like crazy crazy stuff but they they would say to me what because they did a lot of interviews after american werewolf and they said what is the material that changed that allowed you to do work that we haven't seen before and i said i got adequate time and adequate money and it was the first time i had that and after that i like when i did gremlins 2 i had a year's prep but the problem is i need answers a year before we start filming because i i need to make

the stuff and usually a director's on another movie then it doesn't want you know well eventually after i hound them i'm trying to get an answer will give me some kind of answer which just to make me shut up you know cg all that stuff comes in post the film's already made you kind of cut it together they start making the stuff but this is obviously makeup that is yeah so it was cg during the transformation until he's the werewolf and then when he's the werewolf this was done in a different day uh yeah well i mean they the cg was done all in post yeah right but yeah him sitting in the chair was benicio on the day and this is that's actually the stunt double And so sometimes when he was running, he was running on all fours. Yeah, and leg extensions, and most of that stuff is Spencer Wilding,

who was our stunt double. There's some shots of close-ups. This is Spencer, the stunt double. Yeah, but that was what was weird about it. It's like he's running, but he's got kind of like dog legs. Yeah, well, he's a werewolf. Yeah, but he's running on two legs, with dog legs he's a biped i get it that's benicio but it was it was a hybrid you know of american werewolf and the original wolfman well you know the wolfman had

you know he said he stayed on his balls of his feet you know he tried to get that illusion of like dog legs oh the original one yeah yeah and you know i it's to get that illusion of like dog legs. Oh, did he? The original one? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I, it's so funny because I walked like that as a kid all the time, you know, and would do things. And so could Dave Elsie. But when we tried to get the stunt guys or even Benicio to do it, they couldn't do it. They couldn't walk on their toes? On the balls of their feet like that with their heels up. Why not? I don't know.

You know, and it's like, how come I can do it? But it's also something, a skill I developed as a child. Oh, that's hilarious. Now, when you see a film like that and you think about all the difficulties that you had in making it, was there ever a film where they let you just go crazy, just do whatever you wanted to do? Well, pretty much American Werewolf. Yeah. Well, that was the best one. crazy just do whatever you wanted to do well pretty much american werewolf yeah well that

was the best one yeah well that's and and again uh you know gremlins uh two which i did was a film i turned down numerous times my friend chris chris i can't speak chris wayless did the original gremlins and i didn't basically want to copy chris's work right and uh i also knew it was a big job with a lot of stuff. And they kept after me. Chris was unavailable. I think he was doing The Fly. The Jeff Goldblum version?

Yeah, which is amazing. Jeff was amazing. Jeff was great. He should have won an Oscar. I mean, that was one of the all-time great performances. Yeah, a lot of people forgot about that movie. Oh, no, he's brilliant in that. But they said, what can we do to entice you to do this movie and i go let me redesign the gremlin some i go i would like to make them individual characters chris's version

all the gremlins are all the same mold all the mogwai's are all the same mold so you basically because you can't make one puppet that does everything so you have the you know this puppet you have your hand and you have this puppet you have some rods on you have this puppet that does this but they could be interchangeable for any, any mogwai or any gremlin. Making them individual characters means I had to have, you know, six versions of each one, you know, so we made hundreds of things. But I said, you know, if I can make them characters and change the design some, I'd be more interested. And then we came up with the idea of doing the genetics lab where one turns into a bat, one turns into a spider,

one turns into a vegetable gremlin. But what was great about working with Joe Dante, I mean, Joe is also a monster fan, you know, monster kid guy. So we could communicate in that way. You know, we would say, you know, it's like an invasion of the saucer man. He knew what I was talking about. Oh, okay. Like Barry Sonnenfeld, who I did Men in Black with,

if I said that to him, he'd go, you know, never seen a science fiction movie you know i never saw any science that's what he said go i said i went to see alien but i got too scared and left you know and my crew on men in black oh my god this is going to be a disaster you know and i was saying you know i don't you know it could be a really good thing he could make a really unique film and not just base it on other stuff yes you know and i think men in black is a really good thing. He could make a really unique film and not just base it on other stuff that he'd seen, you know. And I think Men in Black is a really great film. It is. Yeah, it's really fun.

And he was terrific for it, you know, but at first it was a little scary, you know. But Joe, but, you know, Joe was great and he's really open to suggestions, you know. And on the first Gremlins, they had a suggestion box. It's like, what can we have the Gremlins do? And people would put things in there. So, you know, we would say, how about if we do this? How about if we do that? Okay.

You know, so it was a nice collaboration, you know, and that was fun. So you have some fond memories. Oh, no. I mean, I have a lot of fond memories. And mostly it's in the pre-production time. I mean, my crew. It is hard, though, to not concentrate. It's like you have to make concerted effort to not concentrate on the annoyances and the negative parts yeah and it is hard and especially when that's you get it every

day yeah but the hours you know people don't realize i mean a normal film day is a 12-hour day yeah but i you know for me an average makeup is a three and a half hour makeup then you have a 12 hour day then you have an hour removal time so they they're very long days. I spent most of my career working 18, 15, 18-hour days, you know, and 20-hour days and sometimes all night, you know, and all day just to get this stuff done. And that's pre-Adderall. Yeah. Nobody had Adderall back then.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm surprised that I'm, you know, like I said, I'm going to be 69 in like a month, and I'm surprised I'm still alive, first of I'm you know like I said I'm going to be 69 in like a month and I'm surprised I'm still alive first of all you know and able to walk and do stuff

you know when I think about the days of standing on my feet all day long all the stuff well what about the chemicals that's the thing

that I would think of it's a little scary yeah you know and we I mean I because of my experience of like I said with the polyurethane foam and yeah I know that you know, and we, I mean, I, because of my experience of, like I said, with the polyurethane foam.

Yeah. I know that, you know, this stuff is dangerous. And I also had one time we, the paint that I used to use to paint rubber, it's hard to get rubber, the paint to stick to rubber. And I found out that on the Creature Firm in Black Lagoon, they made paint out of rubber cement and universal tinting colors uh and thinned it with benzene and it was bond to rubber so i used to paint my mask in my bedroom with benzene which is a carcinogen uh you know atomizing it spraying through an airbrush you know no spray booth or anything i used to have a five gallon drum of benzene that I'd wash my hands off in. Oh, my God.

And then when I found out, because they weren't material safety data sheets like they are now, when I found out how dangerous this stuff was, I became kind of fanatical about it. My shop, my studio, I had seven spray booths to take the fumes away

and make sure it was safe. And I mean, I had, I think, the safest shop in Hollywood with this stuff because I didn't want to, I didn't want to find out

10 years down the line that half my crew died because of something that they dealt with with me. But yeah, it's a little scary, especially in the old days when we didn't know better.

Right. It's, most people now are pretty safe with this stuff. What was the last film you worked on maleficent not the one not the one that just came out but the the first one yeah and uh it was interesting i um i it came about because uh a friend tony g who is uh uh angie's makeup artist and does her beauty makeup all the time.

She worked with me first on Nutty Professor and then we did Life together. And she was like the department head on The Grinch, on The Grinch All Christmas and Planet of the Apes. The Planet of the Apes that I did dealt with all the makeup artists. And it was really great. She's a great beauty makeup artist

but also a really great effects makeup person. And she said to Angie, you know, when, when they were going to do Maleficent, she goes, you have to get Rick Baker. He's the guy to do this, you know, and he's got a good aesthetic and he knows not to, when to put stuff on and when not to, you know, and, and I said, boy, I don't, I don't, women are the hardest to make up, you know, uh, the, especially if you're doing age makeup, you know, I don't think any woman wants to look old, you know. I've done some films where we do the most incredibly subtle little thing and then the actress won't want, doesn't want to come out of the trailer because they say they look like a burn victim, you know, and stuff, you you know or in tears and and i said you know i angie wanted appliances she wanted rubber on her face and i was thinking i don't i don't think she should have you know i said well i think we can do it with the horns and maybe just ears you know but she had this very specific idea that she wanted these angular uh sharp cheeks yeah so i mean the very first thing i did i i did it i well, let me just think about it and do a design, what I think it should be. I did this design and then I met with Angie.

She came to my studio, which is now a storage facility. And she brought a couple of her kids and like a nanny kind of person and paparazzi followed her. We closed the gates and we're talking and she's telling me what she wants. And one of her kids says to the nanny person, he goes, I want a Coke. And Angie was mid-sentence talking to me and she went, please. And it really, I liked that she was teaching her kids manners, you know and that that kind of sold me right there you know it's like okay she's a mom too you know and and she is incredibly beautiful to look at you know and she's pretty persuasive in that respect you know yeah they don't get any prettier yeah

they just get different yeah but i mean oh wow yeah well you did a great job in keeping that beautiful face but adding just a little bit of weirdness yeah demonic weirdness with the cheeks yeah and and again with the horns i was saying know, maybe this is a really good case of doing CG horns and having them tracked onto her. Because when you have something that's that much heavier, well, we made it really lightweight. It was incredibly lightweight. And we spent a lot of time developing these lightweight horns that could be removable. So she didn't have to wear them all the time.

Right. So they remove like at a point about this far up off of her wig. So I thought if they decide they don't like them, we can take them off and they'd be a good tracking for CG. But she wanted them and she wore them. So we spent a lot of time trying to make those really light. What about the wings? The wings I didn't do.

I think I'm not sure even how they did that. I didn't go to location on the filming. Tony G made her up, and I had a really great Dutch guy who was a fan named Arjen, a Titan who put the appliances on with Tony G and represented me on the set. What is that picture with the American Werewolf with the hand sticking out? That's a Mike Hill. What is that picture with the American Werewolf with the hands sticking out? That's a Mike Hill. Mike Hill does these cool, like wax figures, but they're silicone.

So he did me, and he did me as a younger man, which was one of the worst ones he's done. This was at the Academy for something. But yeah, I gave him the molds actually from American american werewolf for the the hands and and some of the stuff but he does he does these great figures and uh unfortunately i i and i think he even agrees the one they did of me was one of the one the less successful i think it looks good well it looks good but it looks a little grim too and i think part of that was my fault though he wanted to do me smiling and i go go, you know, when I'm working, I'm like, this is my concentration phase, you know? But I sat for him, and he had life casts and everything. But he does some brilliant stuff.

What ever happened to the original molds and all the original masks and stuff from the American War Wolf in London, the original sculpture of the wolf? Well, that sculpture gets destroyed, basically, when you make the mold. I have one of the original heads still. I mean, foam rubber is basically the sap of a rubber tree that you put chemicals in to make a cure

and you whip air into it to make it foam and you put another chemical in to make it congeal and then you bake it in the oven. But because it's an organic material

it decomposes. It rots. Oh, really? Yeah. And it will last through a film but it usually doesn't last years.

But it does, the American Werewolf, the stunt head, the one that I kill Griffin with on the moors and go through the pig daily I have, and it's hard as a rock. It turns to like, I call it like grain crackers. And if you touch it hard, it'll crumble into dust. Oh, wow.

It's all hard like that, but it's not, people don't touch it. So what does Pat McGee make these out of? The one that our wolf is?'s, it's all hard like that, but it's not, people don't touch it, you know. So what does Pat McGee make these out of, the one that our wolf is? I think it's probably slip rubber and polyurethane foam, and that lasts a lot longer, but it will decompose. Oh, well, I'll have to start ordering another one. Yeah. Maybe we can get him to do the legs right. If you keep it out of sunlight and keep it out of, you know, I mean.

He doesn't get out of the studio. Yeah, that's good. He'll last a long time and i mean i i have bob burns who this guy that i met when i was young has some of my original masks that i made when i was 13 oh wow and they are still supple you can still move them i don't know how that that rubber has lasted all that time i mean that's pretty incredible long time you know when anyone comes here one of the first things they want to do is take a picture with the world that literally is like one of, like everybody and their brother has a photo like posing next to the wolf or pretend the wolf's biting their head or pretend they're having

sex with the wolf. Yes, a lot of that. There's a lot of people from behind the wolf. What? I think I should get residuals. You probably should get a little something, a little piece, a little taste, something, free cokes, something, anything. A little taste, something, free Cokes, something, anything.

But that, I mean, that thing is, it's, if you had to go through like all the more, the most iconic monsters in the history of films, I mean, you're in the top two or three. I mean, it's right there with all of them. That werewolf was like, my God, I mean, it's absolutely one of the most iconic monsters ever. Someone just on my Instagram just posted a picture of a tattoo, a beautiful tattoo of the werewolf. Oh, yeah? So many people have them. One guy did a cover-up tattoo that was incredible of the werewolf.

But it's funny, I mean, I have the werewolf, I have Harry on people, I've got the Grinch, you know. Yeah. And some of the stuff harry and the henderson's harry yeah that's another one oh and that's one of the films i think still i mean when people ask me what my favorite one is i i say harry because i i can look at that film today and i think it holds up perfectly fine the only thing i think i would change is i would make his teeth a little more translucent you you know, in the ends. But that was a challenging movie because he had to communicate just by his visual expressions and carry the movie, you know.

And I think he did, and I think it worked quite well. Was there, is there a movie that stands out as being the most frustrating, like the end result? Probably, you know, I mean, they're all frustrating to a degree, you know. I don't know if there's one particular one. I mean, I did, and I don't consider this my film. I was approached by Bob Weinstein to do a werewolf movie called Cursed that Wes Craven was going to direct. And I basically turned it down.

And there wasn't a lot of time. And Bob used my own words against me, apparently, on a DVD of American Werewolf. I said, I'd love to have the opportunity to do a transformation again and do it knowing what I know now and with the crew that I have now. And he goes, I'm giving you that. You said that. So I said to him, the only way I would do this is if you don't have an opinion and Wes doesn't have an opinion, you just let me make what I think is best for this film. It's the only way I can make it cool in the time that you have.

I can't play the change this, change that game, you know. Absolutely. Of course, that's not the case. No. They say that. Yeah, they say that. And it was like change this change that change this change that and it was just like you know and you almost have to have a clause in the contract that if they do fuck with you at all you could just leave and get paid i've done that you know in in one one contract but um but yeah it turned out the they started the film before they really had a script.

And it was a good idea. Yeah. And it happens all the time. And it was just a mess. And I never even heard of it. First. Yeah. What's good.

You didn't hear about him. Surprised I'm even mentioning it because it did. They shut the film down. And I went, OK. And I said, but we were we were doing some really cool transformation stuff and it wasn't quite done. And I said, listen, if you some really cool transformation stuff. And it wasn't quite done. And I said, listen, if you ever think the film's going to pick up again, if you can keep a number of my people on for another month, we can have this transformation stuff. We'll put it in a box. It'll be ready to go.

So if they disperse now, it's going to be like starting again. Right. Because I won't necessarily get the same people. Right. Just put everything in a box, ship it to us. If we start up again, we'll figure it out. They started up again. I didn't do it. I was on something else.

Someone else took over. They changed everything that I made. They didn't use a lot of what I made. But the film has a single card opening credit that says Rick Baker on it. And I spoke with weinstein and go i don't want credit for this film it's not my film this isn't my work anymore but it would help them to have you on it yeah yeah yeah so i mean i found that frustrating you know but you know again i have no right to complain about this stuff they don't do a lot of monster movies anymore

and the number of werewolf movies, you can kind of count them on one hand. Right? I mean, you got The Howling. One stretching hand. One stretching hand. I mean, you have The Howling. Of course, you have American Werewolf.

You have the earlier films. But this, it's, you know, and then you have those, I don't consider them werewolf movies. Those, what are the ones with the lady? Underworld. Kate Beckinsale. Yeah, Underworld, yeah.

Yeah, those are kind of. But they're fun to watch kate beckonsdale in a latex suit yeah it's pretty fucking hot but they're just kind of whack the movies are kind of whack the vampires are whack it's like i don't buy any what you're selling i don't think these are real vampires i'm not scared i don't think that's a werewolf get the fuck out of here yeah well i'm more old school yeah horror movie guy and i'm not a big slasher movie guy. You know, I mean, again, I don't like, I mean, I can't watch those fights that you're, you know, Zim. UFC fights? Really?

No, I have one of my crew, Eddie Yang. Shout out to Eddie. Great guy, yeah. Eddie was the, he studied with one of the Gracies. Oh, cool. And he was saying, hey, you got to watch this, Rick. And I mean, these guys hit each other in the face with their elbow. And I said, no, it's not for me.

And people will send me because they think I like this stuff. Pictures. Oh, look, fell down and cut my head. I don't want to see that. Oh, God. I pass out when I cut myself. Really? Yeah.

Do you? I mean, fake gore is one thing. out when I cut myself. Really? Yeah. Do you? I mean, fake gore is one thing, but I think it's bad that a movie, Halloween and Friday the 13th, and it just became what's the most graphic

way we can kill a teenager? And people become, when you see a guy with a knife shoved in his eye and people on his eye just cheer people on him just like cheer. That seems wrong to me. Yeah, the desensitization. You should be repulsed by this stuff.

And I mean, I don't know. But it's so funny. I mean, people would think it's funny and kind of ironic coming from someone like you who's made these insane monster films like American Werewolf in London where he's just ripping guys' heads off and Piccadilly Circus. But it's monster gore. I understand. It's the same thing like if it's a zombie killing – you're killing a zombie, that's okay. That's not real.

Right. But just killing a person – another person killing a person in a graphic way, I'm not fond of. So I don't like – I mean I like – well, I call them monster movies more than anything else. Me too. And, you know, I mean, Charles Lawton and Quasimodo. I mean, it's a brilliant film. Yes. It's a brilliant makeup.

Yeah. 1939. Right. And, you know, it's a perfect makeup on a perfect actor, you know. Charles Lawton was great in that movie. And you feel for him, you know. You feel for the Frankenstein's perfect actor you know uh charles long was great in that movie and you feel for him you know you feel for the frankenstein's monster you know those those movies just don't there's so few and far between today i gotta see a real frankenstein type movie were you fond of the robert de niro version of frankenstein you know when i heard they were

going to do that film i thought i gotta do this you know um and i like i said i don't have an agent i have a lawyer that makes my deals that i ended up you have to they give you these contracts you don't understand you know right um and he i i said do you know anybody involved with this because you know can you put in a put my name in the hat you know uh and they didn't seem to be interested and when i saw the film i i was kind of glad i didn't do it. I wasn't, and I also, I was disappointed. I thought, how cool they got Robert De Niro and not just some big stunt guy.

Right. You know. Yeah. Because, you know, Karloff was a good actor, I think, too. And then eventually, you know,

when it turned into Glenn Strange who was bigger and stuff, who was still kind of a cool Frankenstein, but wasn't Karloff, you know. I thought, great that they have an actor,

you know. But I was so disappointed when I saw it. I didn't think what he did was amazing at all. And the design, it was a lot of work, and I thought it was well done, but it didn't have the impact that Karloff. Right, yeah, impact's right expression. Yeah, and, you know, and it's something,

it's very much, when I was a kid, I did a makeup thinking, well, he's pieced together out of a bunch of different people. Should be lots of scars and some different colors and things. But you need a certain silhouette and something that just catches your eye. And I didn't think that one did. Pull up the image of Robert De Niro as Frankenstein. And you should pull up Boris Karloff at the same time. Yeah, the Boris Karloff one. I mean, that was the first.

And that's iconic. Yeah, sure. And again, the design, if you think about it, doesn't make sense. You know, why does he have a flat head? Right. Why does he have bolts on his neck? Yeah. Well, that makes more sense because that's how they feed electricity.

Yeah, there it is. Yeah. That on the left, I think that's a test or something that looks different to me. Yeah. And again, it does kind of make sense when you think of it as a man that's pieced together on different parts. Right, but why are they piecing his face together like that? I know. Right, because Boris Karloff wasn't that pieced together.

No. But the head was very bizarre, like the flat head. Yeah, with the flat head. I know. of his head by cutting the top of his head off, opening it up like a box, and putting a new brain in, closing it back up like a box. But it still wouldn't be flat. Why is it flat? Yeah. You would put the skull back on it, and maybe it'd be an eighth of an inch shorter. Well, how about Frankenstein's bride? She was still hot.

I know with that nephrotidic kind of hair. Yeah, she had the crazy hair, but she was still hot. Is that the original Frankenstein? Who's that guy in the upper left? That's the Edison Frankenstein. And again, he has kind of a flat head. So I think that might have... He's got some crazy hair.

He looks like Eddie Money. She was shaking. Doesn't it? Yeah, he's kind of goofy looking, but yeah. Karloff's face was just so perfect for it. I didn't know there was that many Frankensteins. Who's the other one? What is that one?

Is that Frank? Well, there's Christopher Lee from Curse of Frankenstein. Christopher Lee, right. And it's Young Frankenstein. Oh, Young Frankenstein. Yeah. And Herman Munster on the bottom. I love the Munsters.

Yeah, the Munsters are cool. Yeah. But it is kind of funny that Herman Munster is just a ripoff of Frankenstein. Well, he's supposed to be. They don't call him Frankenstein. Well, he's supposed to be, though. And, you know, I mean, the fathersters are cool. Yeah. But it is kind of funny that Herman Munster is just a ripoff of Frankenstein. Well, he's supposed to be, though. And, you know, I mean, the father's like Dracula. Right. Yeah, sure. And Eddie's kind of like a little wolf man, you know.

Yeah. And I remember TV Guide before this came on the air, but they talked about the new shows that were coming out. You know, this is in the 60s, and this is when the big monster craze happened. And, you know, I was all over it and saw, there's gonna be a frankenstein guy on tv you know and and uh it was a great time for somebody like me you know and and it just soaked it all in and what is the impediment like it seems like people love those movies when they come out why don't they make more of those movies you know well first of all the wolfman that i did wasn't very successful and i didn't make a lot of money but that was stopped in production at one point that was reshot they reshot a bunch of it right yeah well we came back

for reshoots and again this is the same thing movies called the wolfman right they call me up and go we're going to do some reshoots in three weeks. We want you to build suits for two stuntmen because we're going to do this quadruped running, which wasn't in the film originally. And I said, in three weeks? I said, remember when we did The Wolfman, we set up a shop in London that took like two months to set up? All the molds are somewhere in London. I have no idea where they are.

You've got them in storage somewhere. I said, we had found a crew. We did the whole thing. I go, there's no way I can do it in three weeks. I said, what are we filming? They said, well, the fight at the end in the house and all that. And I said, well, the set's going to take a while to put back together. And they go, oh, no, we started that three months ago.

Oh, great. And I went, so you're giving me three weeks to make the Wolfman for this reshoot? And you knew about it for three months ago oh great and i went so you're giving me three weeks to make the wolf man for this reshoot and you knew about it for three months you know and it's like you know and if they would have called me even a week sooner it was a time when everybody was out of work it was kind of a dry time and but the you know week before they called me a whole bunch of shows started everybody was busy i couldn't find a crew and it was like oh my god so how'd you wind up doing it working day and night and i got my friends dave and lou elsie again and and i found a couple guys that could kind of do some of the stuff and and we pulled it off you know but it was i mean i seriously was working day and night

got on a plane you know flew to london got off the plane made up inicio and another trailer we had people i hadn't worked with before making up the stunt double you know and it was like we have to do this because emily blunt is going to be doing gulliver's travels she's only available for two days so we have to film now so i get off the plane make up inicio stunt doubles made up everybody's looking good i walk out to where we're filming, and they're filming the stunt double in silhouette. And this is, again, there's like Video Village where there's an army producer sitting in chairs looking at the monitor. And I went over to him, I said, okay, you have to explain this to me. And they go, what, Rick?

And I go, why are we filming this fucking stunt double when Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Hugo Weaving are sitting in their trailer. We only have Emily Blunt for two nights. We're filming in the summer in England. It gets dark at 10 o'clock. It gets light at 4 o'clock in the morning. It's going to be light in two hours. This is one of the two days that we have Emily Blunt.

Why are we not filming her? And they all looked at each other. And they go,unt, why are we not filming her? And they all looked at each other and they go, yeah, why are we not filming her? Well, there must be a reason. You know, and I was going, fuck. You know. Yeah, the movie was cursed.

Pardon the pun. Isn't John Landis' son involved in some sort of a remake of American Werewolf? It's been announced that he was going to do that. I don't know if it's ever going to happen. Those things happen all the time. Right, they announce it and then it just sort of – Yeah, Guillermo del Toro every other week, there's some film that he's going to make.

And some of them happen, some of them don't. But he's a big fan of monster films, right? He is, and he, again, I think he's – He was a part of The Strain, wasn't he? The film? Yeah, yeah. The television show? Yeah, and I met Guillermo – first, he was a makeup artist. He used, wasn't he? The film? Yeah. The television show? Yeah.

And I met Guillermo. First, he was a makeup artist. He used to be a makeup artist in Mexico. And he was a Dick Smith student and a fan, a Dick Smith fan. And Dick introduced me to him. And Guillermo came to my studio as a fanboy makeup artist first. And I did Hellboy with him. And I was in The Strain. He has me killed by one of the

stragoi in the strain. The strain starts off great. The book does. The book's really good for like three quarters of the way through. And then it seems like they just kind of

tried to finish it. You know, it's like very compelling in the beginning. It's like an interesting storyline. Like, okay, I see what's going on. I'm not much of a reader.

I'm kind of dyslexic so I have a really long time reading. Do you listen to books on on tape i you know it doesn't work for me either oh really yeah i i i always say i have too many voices in my head as it is you know but i when i'm when i'm working i mean i have a real hard time you know like if you do a red carpet thing and there's people talking on either side it short circuits my brain right and they ask me a question and i'm just hearing these other people and words don't want to come out of my mouth, you know.

And it's kind of that way when I'm working. And I think part of it, like I said, I was an only child. I learned working in a room by myself. Right. And quiet, you know. Right. I like it that way. I mean, if I sculpt or paint, I listen to music.

But if I do stuff on the computer, I'll do a lot of designs on the computer and stuff, and I do some computer animation stuff for fun. I can't have any other sounds and stuff. Yeah, you just need to be focused. My wife knows this very well. If I'm trying to answer an email and she's talking to me, I just totally screw it up. Your brain just doesn't work that well. I did a book signing the other night

and if people are talking when I'm signing my name, I wrote I asked the person how to spell their name and then they were saying something else and I screwed up their book. I've written my name wrong. In the book

there's a picture some drawings I did as a kid and one I did in pen and ink of Dracula. And I wanted to be, because it was pen and ink and I couldn't erase it, I got out of Famous Monsters to make sure I spelled Dracula right. And very carefully was looking at the letters and writing in pen and ink. It says Drac-ila on it. And I did a painting for my wife, this kind of romantic old painting. You know, it was for Valentine's Day. And I wanted, I didn't know how to spell Valentine, so I looked it up. And I very carefully painted Valentine time.

So, again, thank God that my career choice worked out because I couldn't work in an office, and I'm sure I'd be a homeless guy now. I mean, my brain just doesn't work like a normal person. Well, but the way it does work is wonderful. The way your brain can focus on the things that you really love and you figure out how to get it to focus correctly, just shut the music off, just be alone. Yeah. It surprises me that i can do that you know and and but and and i really get in the zone and i really focus on what i'm doing and to me i mean the funny thing is i mean my i think i started saying this before i was talking

about not wanting to be a businessman and stuff and people are always surprised that i'm hands-on still you know a lot of other people who have uh for example stan winston who was you know great and did some great stuff and was great for the makeup industry and and helped advance the state of the art was a businessman more than a hands-on guy he hired people to do the work and he he had a good eye and he would contribute stuff but he rarely sculpted the stuff i tried to sculpt the stuff i designed the stuff you know i'm and and i'm always surprised when people go i paint and sculpt and do all these things you know and uh and when people see one of my paintings they go you can paint you know and it's like there's shock that i can paint and i go

you can sculpt you know i have a there's a bronze gorilla at the LA Zoo that's a sculpture that I did. And people go, you can sculpt? And I go, yeah, it's part of what I do. Yeah, it's the whole thing, man. Where did that werewolf came from? Yeah, you know, so. But yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.

But yeah, I am. Do you think that there's ever a project that could come up that could tempt you into coming out of retirement? If somebody listens to you on this podcast and realizes that a lot of people have fucked with you while you worked and said, Rick, we could do something amazing, just one more. You know, when I first retired, I would have said yes. I mean, I was leaving it open that I said, well, I'll maybe do designs or consult. I'm having way too much fun doing my own thing.

I mean, I still probably have the remains of my Halloween makeup. Halloween is a big thing in my family. I'm so sorry they didn't send you a copy of the book. I'll get it. Don't worry. When I get it, I'll put it on Instagram. Well, it's not so much about that. I just think if you're a fan, I think you'll like it.

No, I am a fan. I mean, I'm blown away by the response that I'm getting. That's awesome. From people. I mean, they're loving it. It's not so much about that. I just think if you're a fan, I think you'll like it. No, I am a fan. I mean, I'm blown away by the response that I'm getting. That's awesome. From people. I mean, they're loving it. It's not a cheap book. It's like 250 bucks, you know, but it weighs 17 pounds. It's two volumes.

Oh, wow. And with 2,000 pictures in it from birth, basically, to my last film and beyond, you know, in my retirement. But I don't know where I was going with that. What did you ask me? Well, we were talking about possibly coming out of retirement you were saying how much fun you're having right now no I I seriously doubt that anything would would get me back well that's great to hear well because it's it's not great because I would love it if you did another movie but it's great to hear that you're having such a good time well you know one of the things I I um

when I watched um Breaking Bad uh and Bryan Cranston, you know, is such a great actor, but I said, you know, he would make a great Lon Chaney. If they ever did a remake of Man of a Thousand Faces, which was the story of Lon Chaney, he would be the perfect person, you know, besides being a great actor. And my wife Sylvie and I went to a Comic-Con and went to a panel that they had on Breaking Bad. And we went back and I met Brian and Vince. And I said that to them. And I don't know, maybe if that happened. I don't think anybody would go see that film now. Or how many people even know who Lon Chaney is now.

But to be able to recreate some of those makeups on an actor like that, you know, and if it was the right people. But again, I realized, you know, I mean, death became a more real thing to me when my parents died. And I have friends that were younger than me that are dead now. One of my favorite crew, one of my best guys and we just recently passed 54 or something um and i know there's an end in sight and i know you know i've got arthritis my i've got cataracts uh i i there's a limited time that i have left to do the things i want to do and i want to do what i

want to do you know what i mean and I don't want the frustration and the stress. Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. Look, you already did it. You know? Well, that's it too. I mean, you made some of the most amazing movies ever.

I mean, you know, if I died today, which I hope I don't, I mean, I would be happy with what I've accomplished. And that was another thing with the book. I mean, when you see it laid out there in 800 pages, you know, saying, well, I've made a lot of shit in my time, you know? You certainly do. Yeah, I've made a lot of stuff. And I'm proud of what I made, you know uh uh saying well i've made a lot of shit in my time you know yeah i've made a lot of stuff and and and i'm proud of what i made you know i mean you do the best you can in the circumstances and i fight one of the things that uh i realized when i read the book too uh which cameron publishing who did the book and and jonathan rinsler who who wrote it who did he interviewed me a lot and he also went back to old articles and old things at the book and Jonathan Rinsler who wrote it, he interviewed me a lot.

And he also went back to old articles and old things at the time and did a really nice job of weaving the story together. But when I read it, I thought, God, you know, what a pain in the ass I am. But I fight for what I think is right. For example, The Grinch, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. They wanted me to paint Jim Carrey green and that was it you know

and it was like well I mean I think they wanted some hair too you know but but I'm going come on you know it's not called how the green Jim Carrey stole Christmas it's how the Grinch stole Christmas you're a Grinch

you know so I did like I do many times on myself like I did on the Wolfman I make myself up and I film some stuff and I show them so I made myself up what I thought The Grinch would look like. I filmed some stuff.

I cut it together. I showed it to them. I go, you guys, this is cooler than the green Jim Carrey. I'm sorry. And they're going, well, it doesn't look like Jim Carrey. I go, no, because it's on me. And they go, but again, it's not the green Jim Carrey. And it seems to me it should be this character, not just, you know.

And I fought and fought and fought. And I ended up doing a thing where I decided to use the Internet to help me get my point across. So there was an Internet movie site at the time that was popular. And I knew the guy who ran it was a fan. popular and and i knew the guy who ran it was it was a fan and i said can you say that you saw this test that i did and that the guys at universal are making a big mistake you know and just let the fans chime in so there was like thousands of responsible what the hell's wrong with these idiots that are running the movie studios that shouldn't i don't want to see a green jim carrey i want to see a grinch so like two weeks before we started filming, they, they changed because of this. And I had sent, you know, I only sent the copy of

my test to, to Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. And Ron's going, how did this guy get hold of this copy of the tape? And I go, I don't know. I only sent it to you and, and Brian, you know, and I mean, I didn't let him know what I did at the time. Now I don't care because it came. I think the movie is better for it, you know. Sure. And in fact, even at an Oscar party, one of the executives at the studio came up to me and said, you know, thank you for doing The Grinch and for arguing with us because the decision was right. It was definitely right. You turned him into The Grinch.

He really was The Grinch. But I thought I was going to get hit by a meteor or something. the decision was right. It was definitely right. You turned him into the Grinch. He really was the Grinch. But I thought I was going to get hit by a meteor or something. This is not right. An executive never tells you that stuff. But again, I mean, I fight because it's my work. And if my name's on it, I want it to be of a certain quality. And it's not easy to get it done that way. And it's part easy to get it done that way, you know, and it's part of the battle, you know.

But it's also part of the frustration, you know. So now I only have to fight with myself, you know. Beautiful. Listen, man, thank you very much for coming here. It's been an honor and I was really looking forward to this. It's a real treat for me to get to sit down and talk to you. Oh, thank you so much. I'm glad we did.

I figure anybody that has an American War Wolf in their lobby can't be a bad guy. Thank you, Rick. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. My pleasure. Bye, everybody.