WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1064 - Rick Baker

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

It’s very likely Rick Baker created something that made you smile, laugh, cringe, scream, or all of the above, as one of the most innovative and memorable creators of makeup effects in movie history. Rick tells Marc about being obsessed with movie makeup at 10 years old, watching monster movies on television, and drawing inspiration from Lon Chaney and his future colleague Dick Smith. But he had to fight to be accepted in an industry that didn’t want him, as he went on to create iconic cinema moments, from Star Wars to American Werewolf in London to dozens of versions of Eddie Murphy to The Grinch to gorillas. Lots and lots of gorillas. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace and the Adult Swim Podcast. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron mark did i just say mark maron know, I shouldn't be mispronouncing my own name, but I guess I'm Mark Marin today. And this is my podcast, WTF. How you doing, Mark? Pretty good. Mark, there you go. What's Mark up to? I guess he's doing a show without you. Without who? Without Mark. So this is Mark? Yup. I want to say today on the show, sort of a unique show for us. I think it is, I guess in a way, maybe not. I can talk to anybody, but Rick Baker is the makeup artist genius. He's the makeup artist that all the other makeup artists look up to.

He's done all of this stuff. He worked on The Exorcist a bit. He did this amazing thing. I remember when I was a kid, the autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. He did some work on Star Wars. He did The Howling. He did Videodrome with Cronenberg. He did like two or three King Kongs. I think he did Dino De Laurentiis' King Kong, and then he did Peter Jackson's King Kong, and then he did Joe, the other one. What's that one called? Mighty Joe, Mighty Joe Kong, Mighty Joe Young. A lot of apes.

There's a lot of apes involved in makeup. He did How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Nutty Professors movies, Men in Black stuff. The guy is the guy. He's a fucking genius and he's got this amazing huge two book set out that covers his entire life in pictures and in prose. And

it's just phenomenal. And I'm not like, you know me, I'm not a fantasy guy, but I've seen most of those movies. So it was kind of an interesting opportunity and I'm glad I took it. So you will hear me talking to Rick Baker in a few. So a couple of emails I'd like to address, perhaps, can I? This is the subject line, episode 1063, chocolate-covered coconut cookie snacks. Hi there. I was just listening to Mark's opening monologue of episode 1063 when he mentioned the vegan snacks for Woody Harrelson that Frank had left behind, the, quote, chocolate-covered coconut cookie snacks, unquote. As you can probably tell from my email address, I work for Emmy's Organics, an organic coconut cookie snacks, unquote. As you can probably tell from my email address, I work for Emmy's Organics,

an organic coconut cookie and treat company based in Ithaca, New York. I was hoping you could tell me if the snacks Mark mentioned in this episode were in fact Emmy's products pictured below. And if so, if you like them, would you like us to send some more for Mark to enjoy and share with his podcast guests?

Now, right out of the gate, like, is there a lot of competing chocolate covered coconut cookie things that seems like four words you know the only word that wasn't right on the money was snack right so i'm glad that you thought that like there was a question it's like i don't know if he's talking about our bites or not i mean we make the chocolate covered coconut cookie bites but he might have gotten our competitors the makers of the chocolate covered coconut cookie snack those fuckers it was indeed emmy's chocolate covered coconut cookie bites snacks, but they are snacks, but you got it right. And this isn't even a paid plug. I don't think I should have any more. As good as they were, I appreciate your offer,

but I don't want them in my house. Is that mean? Very good. I love them. I love them. Don't want them in the house. That's how that goes. And I think it's also important that I just say this at least once a show. President Donald Trump is a scumbag. He's a fucking morally bankrupt douchebag. He's a weak piece of shit. And it's like, is that just name calling? Yes, it is.

But I've grown to believe that I did not just make a political statement. I think it's time to reframe the conversation. Here's what it is. That wasn't political. That was observational. That was a regular person. Hey, let's make an observation about this guy. Doesn't matter even what he's doing. Like, let's say, hey, that guy's name is Don and he's selling cars.

That guy's a fucking scumbag. He's a morally bankrupt, fucking corrupt douche. Don, you just having that first reaction to him? Yeah, I don't even know that guy. So that is the regular reaction. So that's observational, not political. Just happens to be the president. Anybody who's saying like he's doing the right thing and he's a good guy and we really love him. That's delusional. See, there's a difference between neither are political.

One is observational. The other one is fucking nuts. Like nuts. I'm not talking about the upper tier. They have their own reasons for doing things because they don't live in the world with the rest of us. I'm just talking about us. There's observational comedy and delusional defensive reactions to that. Here's another email. Hey, Mark, subject line, kid havers response. I appreciate you apologizing for hurting some people's feelings when calling people kid havers, but you are literally the only prominent voice in my life that doesn't make me feel bad for not having kids, actually makes me feel good about it. Every commercial, every political speech,

every job pitch is always, think about your kids. Well, I don't have any, and I'm still a person that wants to matter. I just want to say thank you for being a voice for the children, thanks. I appreciate you calling me out on that, being considerate to people that made the horrendous mistake to bring children into the children. Thanks. I appreciate you calling me out on that, being considerate to people that made the horrendous mistake to bring children into the world. And maybe that didn't come out

right. You're right. I shouldn't apologize for who I am. And I was just trying to be polite. And good luck with your kids. And you and me, Carlos, the guy who wrote the email, it's pretty comfortable, isn't it? It's nice. Are you feeling pretty free today? Like you worried about your kid? No, you're not. Is the kid, oh, you don't have one.

What about the future? I don't know, I'm probably gonna be dead. You too, Carlos? Yep. Wow. Ah, breathe easy. But anyways, I hope everyone's kids are okay. And I'm sorry I don't want to be grim, but I think Carlos is right.

I don't need to apologize for him, but I was just trying to be respectful. Before I get too wrapped up in whatever it is I'm going on about, Nick Tosh is dead. Nick Tosh is the writer, a former guest on this show. I talked to Nick in 2015. It was very important, the writer, a former guest on this show. I talked to Nick in 2015. It was very important to me to track him down and talk to him. We did it at a hotel in New York. He sort of was a difficult guy to find. He was a bit erratic, a bit drunk at times, a very unique, a very dark type of guy, but very cynical, but cutting and smart dude.

And some of his books are some of the best books I ever read. Among them, Dino, Living High in the Business of Dreams about Dean Martin. I love that book. Hellfire, an earlier book about Jerry Lee Lewis, which I loved a lot. He did a book called The Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll, which was a real education for me. The Devil and Sonny Liston, which was a great book about Sonny Liston. Tosh was great. He lived hard and now he's gone. I think he was like 69 years old. And Dino, whether it's accurate or not,

is one of the best books about show business I've ever read. Rest in peace there, Nick Toshes, if that's possible. I imagine he's going to be difficult wherever he goes. So great time in Nashville and Atlanta. I've been watching Ken Burns' country music and what an amazing treat it is. And I was in Nashville and a lot of that stuff happened in Nashville. You know, the day after I leave Nashville, I'm watching, I think I'm up to the fourth episode. They're like two hours a piece.

But then I was actually I was walking through a part of Nashville called I think Music Row or whatever and I didn't really know what it was it didn't look like much and this morning way too late I learned what it was and why it was called that but nonetheless I've been watching it and things sort of were syncing up I do know a little you guys listen to me bullshit my way through knowing things here all the time, but I know a bit about rock. I know a bit about blues. I know a bit about jazz. I mean, I can sort of track it, you know, historically both, all three of those things, really. I don't know a lot of the jazz performers, but I have a sense of the history. I had zero sense of the

history of country music. And I have a lot of the records. I didn't grow up with country music and I have a lot of the records I didn't grow up with country music it was around me I grew up in New Mexico I remember the state fair the rodeo you know the acts coming through Waylon Willie Roy Clark Buck Owens uh you know uh who else do I remember from when I was a kid Freddie Fender Freddie Fender wasted days and wasted nights come on huh i'll be there before the next teardrop fall i think he might have lived in albuquerque he seemed to be there all the time but none that i it wasn't in my household so much as it was around me but i'd grown to love country music i just didn't know anything about it and And the Ken Bernstock is just blowing my fucking mind. You know, the way he frames things, he gives you context. And I was listening to, I meditated all day on, I think, Saturday,

the day I got to Atlanta after being in Nashville. I listened to the Carter family all day long. I was mystified. And I never knew, I knew who Jimmy Rogers was, and I had the cover record, but I didn't know how important he was. I didn't know that it was all about Jimmy Rogers and the Carter family. That is the Rosetta Stone of modern country. But you go back to their influences, and there's definitely some blues in there,

and there's some other stuff. But that was sort of they were the template according to burns and according to people he talked to but to me that's just fucking fascinating and now i got a place to start and kind of arc out and i've got the records i guess the whole point of me talking to you right now is to just give a plug to ken burns's country music documentary and also to tell you i have a lot of records. I just want you to know I have a lot of records and many of them are country records. But here's what I learned in Nashville. I had a big, I had a learning moment. I want to share it with you. And I always love going to Nashville, but I learned something about myself there and I want to, and I want to share it with you. And I

think I'm going to stick to this. Okay. I'm old, right? I'm 56 years old. And I know that's not old, old. And I know that other people in their fifties get really defensive when you say that you're old and you're 50 something. But folks, I didn't assume I would live this long. Okay. And now here I am. All right. It's great. But sometimes I don't always know what to do with life. Like, you know, what makes it fun, worthwhile, exciting? Huh? What? I mean, historically for me, it seems to be doing things that aren't great for me, but feel really good. And I've had to move away from those things. All right. Change them up a bit. OK, I have my moments where I think and I think many of you can relate to this we all have these moments where I'm just like fuck it fuck it you only live once

man fuck it I'm doing it and I decided I decided in it was in Nashville you know right on time actually that it's not necessarily a bad philosophy if you manage it. Like I decided that I could only apply it to one decision a day max, if at all. You don't have to, every day doesn't have to have a fuck it, you only live once in it

because then you're probably not going to live long. So here's what I did. I was in Nashville and I said i said fuck it i only live once and i ate at arnold's country kitchen all right that's it's arnold's it's a meet and three and i've been wanting to go there for years but for some reason they're closed on weekends and they're only open for lunch and it was just never open they always seem closed when i was there and i was dying for some chest pie which you can only get down south and not too many places there have it either.

It's specific and they have it at Arnold's. I went to Arnold's. I said, fuck it. I'm going because I'm a pretty healthy guy. I had a plate of fried catfish, cauliflower casserole, corn pudding, turnip greens, cornbread, and a slice of chest pie.

They actually had meringue on it. There were options. I had, you could go meringue or no meringue. I went with meringue. I don't care. Fuck it. I only live once. Now, I'm glad that was where I allotted my one daily use of that philosophy because right

after I ate at Arnold's, I walked like across the parking lot. It's right there to Carter's Vintage Guitars. Okay. And for some reason, Carter's was where the estate of Ed King, I think his wife, Ed King being the original guitar player, one of the original guitar players of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the guy who wrote Sweet Home Alabama, the guy whose signature picks I use. His wife was selling his guitar collection through Carter's Vintage Guitars. And I found out later that Jason Isbell had bought one, but that's another story. So I'm in there and I'm looking at guitars and I'm looking at Ed King's mint 1953 Les Paul Deluxe gold top. It was fucking stunning.

Okay. I didn't need it, but I didn't need the Arnold's either. Okay. My point is, I said, fuck it at the right place. Because the difference between me saying, fuck it, I only live once at Arnold's and not at Carter's was about $39,980. All right. Thank God I stuck to my allotment. Now I'm not saying that I have that kind of money to spend on a guitar, but, but fuck it, man. I could have, I could have, you know, I don't know

if I would have felt good about it. Chess pie was amazing. I don't know if I'd be sitting here with my 53 gold top after spending $40,000 on it, because I said, fuck it, that I would be like, after spending $40,000 on it because I said fuck it, that I would be like, yeah, man, I'm so glad I bought that guitar. I'd probably be like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Maybe I'm wrong, though. But I think that was a smart use of my new fuck it limit. All right?

My fuck it, you only live once limit. I don't feel great about the Chess Pie. But again, I think i feel better about it than how i would feel if i would have spent forty thousand dollars on a guitar so i'll be at the masonic in san francisco october 26th that's this saturday it's the last show of my tour before i do my special come out to that i'll have a hundred posters and i prefer cash but uh rick baker this was sort of an interesting thing for me because I learned a lot. I met a genius. I met a guy that, you know, did something in a way no one else had done before him, set standards, created ways of doing things

in makeup that still stick now, changed an industry, won like seven, I think, or maybe eight Oscars. And it was a, it was an honor actually. You know, like I said, I'm not a fantasy guy, but this is a skillset. It's a,

it's a, an often celebrated or at least talked about job and entertainment, but you know, he talks about the struggles of getting accepted even as a makeup artist for doing what he was doing. It was just a, it was a unique conversation to have here. And I doing what he was doing. It was just a, it was a unique conversation to have here. And I'm glad I had it. This was me and Rick Baker and his book, which is amazing. Rick Baker Metamorphosis is available wherever you get

books. It's going to be out tomorrow, October 22nd. Pre-order it now. It's huge. It's two huge books, but stunning photographs and beautifully written. And this is me talking to the genius, the makeup artist genius that is Rick Baker. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need.

And policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Death is in our air. Zinsurance, mind your business. life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply so you know i it was funny i'm'm looking at the book. Massive. It's a massive book. And metamorphosis. It's got the arc of your entire life in pictures. And we were talking in the kitchen before.

It's odd to you to look at that thing? Well, it is weird. It's kind of like your life passing before your eyes, you know? Yeah. But you had all the stuff. You know, I save stuff. I think creative people do that.

Yeah. You know, it's like my wife's always on my case because I'll, you know, save old yogurt containers. Well,

that's a little nuts. Well, because I use them to mix paint. Oh, right, right. I reuse it.

It's like recycling, you know. Right. But I mean, you know, it's like, that looks like I could use that someday,

you know, so I have boxes full of stuff that I've had for 50 years that I never use again. Right, but pictures though too, right? Yeah. And all that stuff? Yeah, for 50 years that I never use again. Right. But pictures, though, too, right? And all that stuff?

Yeah. So that came in really handy. Because there are pictures of some pretty early stuff that you worked on. When did that start? When did you start making masks? Well, I started doing makeup when I was 10. I decided that's what I wanted to do with my life. How does that?

Now, where did you grow up? Covina, which is like east of here. You grew up in Covina? Yeah, I was born in New York in Binghamton, but my parents left when I was not even one. So you're out in Covina, you're 10. Yeah. And what do you see that plants that seed? Well, like so many people, my generation, I was born in 1950.

Okay. I grew up in front of a television. Right. Every weekend, you know, and I think in every state across the union, you know, there was a monster movie on, you know, a horror show host on the weekend. That's right. And I love that stuff. You know who's, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson's dad was one of those guys. No way.

Who was he? Goularty. Was he? In Cleveland. I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's Paul Thomas Anderson's dad was one of those guys. No way. Who was he? Goularty. Was he? In Cleveland. I had no idea. Yeah, that's Paul Thomas Anderson's father. Oh, that's cool. That's good information.

Well, you know, there's Sven Gouli now. Oh, really? There's a channel called MeTV, and I watch Sven Gouli. And there is still a guy. Yeah, there's still a guy. And I faithfully watch it. You know, I've seen all the movies a million times. Sure, but you like the guy.

I just like the fact that it still exists. And you who gulardi was uh-huh yeah so you knew some of the local the different regions because those those stations were like they were local yeah yeah everyone had a local guy but they had the same movie packages right that's a theater package you know so i mean everybody across the united states you know who was like my age who was watching that stuff you know and there was a magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland. My brother used to get it. I was never the horror guy, but it landed with him. And he had those magazines, and he was sort of obsessed with it.

Oh, yeah. I was, too. And it was a film magazine. I mean, it talked about all aspects of the monster movies. Not just the directors and the actors, but Jack Pierce, who did the Frankenstein's monster makeup and all that. And I went, this is what I want to do. I mean, I used to say I wanted to be a doctor.

Right. My parents were very excited about that. At 10. Yeah, but I wanted to be Dr. Frankenstein. Yeah, right. But that's interesting because somehow or another, because unlike, it's not delusional in a sense, like, you know, acting when a kid wants to be an actor, princess or something, you know, it's like I want to be a movie star. You don't know how that happens. But I mean, you look at something and because of that magazine, you're like, there's a there's a job here.

Like this, this guy does that. And I've seen a lot of these movies movies so this is it's an employment opportunity there yeah and but more than anything i just wanted to do it you know i mean i just like i just wanted to make stuff and i mean i when i was 10 i didn't decide i was going to do it for a living i was just like i this is what i want to do so i started making myself up and i made my first mask when i was 13 of who was it uh it was actually the very very first one was Frankenstein from Curse of Frankenstein, the Christopher Lee Hammer film version, which I was not the biggest fan of that makeup, but I did it because I figured I could do it because it was kind of a sloppy. Yeah, it seems kind of sloppy. And did you do it? I did, yeah. And it just never stopped after that.

But when you read the magazines, did you know certain processes, or did you just kind of wing it? How much of it was sort of your own invention? There was a little bit of information. There was the occasional article on that stuff, but fortunately my father was a very creative guy, but growing up in Binghamton, New York, he was discouraged. You don't want to stop drawing, do something you can make a living at. Sure at sure what he ended up doing well he dropped out of high school to help his family you know

when he moved to california he just had a bunch of crappy jobs you know really worked at sears for a while drove a truck for a while you know and when uh but he always had he took like a correspondence course of you know how to draw you know and even though he had a natural ability and when i was in high school i think it was a sophomore in high school my mom was a bank teller yeah um he said i want to try to make a living as an artist and there were lean times you know i mean uh it's hard to make a living uh doing creative things you know and especially if you're not established right you know, so he would do these. He had no plan. He was just sort of like, I want to do it. Yeah. And I mean, it was

the happiest I've ever seen him, you know, and thank God. I mean, I had the most amazing parents in the world. They were very positive thinking, very supportive. Did he end up making a living as an artist? Well, I mean, I think the one year I remember them doing their tax returns and being really excited because their combined income was $6,000. And that was, you know, my mom's bank teller salary and my dad sold, you know, maybe five paintings that year. What did he, like, so your mom was a bank teller? Yeah. And then eventually assistant to the manager of the bank.

So she was, she had the stable job. Yeah. And what's your dad painting? Like, what's the style? He was a realist uh um you know and he would do portraits of people and things but mostly you know the things he sold the most with people wanted a portrait of their dog you know it was like that's like that's still a thing yeah yeah i know a guy you know tony millionaire he's a cartoonist you know uh and

he's done several books but he'll he'll he he'll hire himself out to paint your dog or your house or come over and draw your shit. Yeah. It's still a real thing. Well, it was hard. You know, my dad would do these parking lot art shows, you know, and it's mostly people with macrame, you know. Did you go to those? I did. There was one that used to be on La Cienega and Melrose, the parking lot in the corner. And Covina, you know, it was,

it's, you know, 30 or 40 miles East of Hollywood. I didn't have a car, you know, and, uh, I would go with him and then get out and walk to like Hollywood Boulevard from there and walk around, you know? And there was a place called Projects Unlimited that did a, um, the special effects for the Outer Limits TV show. Yeah. And I knew where they were. So I would go and dig through their trash and stuff. Did you find anything ever?

I did. Yeah. A couple of times I found one little block, flat mold that had cool texture. Really? Do you still have it? That's the question. I don't. You know, I had, my studio was in Glendale.

Uh-huh. And it was- Your own place. Yeah. Yeah. I'm retired now. Right. But it was 60 Your own place. Yeah. Yeah. I'm retired now. Right. But it was 60,000 square foot buildings.

Right. Huge building. And about 30,000 of it was storage. And I had molds from when I was a kid that I saved for like 50 years. And when I finally moved out about four or five years ago, I mean, I was like, what do I do with all this stuff? Yeah. And, you know, some of it is like movie history, you know.

Right. Like, what do you got? You know. All of it. Yeah. But I just thought, you know, I can't store all this stuff. You know, this stuff. And, you know, like I said, some of it for 50 years.

Yeah. And eventually we filled up 15 big roll-off dumpsters with molds. And I saved a lot still. Really? Yeah. Like, these are faces? Yeah are faces yeah faces but you know we you know the process is you know take a cast the person's face you sculpt with clay yeah you're making mold of that yeah so like for example the grinch you know jim carrey uh jim carrey's makeup

i saved that mold you know yeah um but some stuff i just threw out and it was like why did i say this for 50 years because i'm thrown out because you made it yeah well that's it you out and it was like, why did I say this for 50 years and then throw it out? Because you made it. Yeah, well that's it. And you know, and it's like, it means something. I mean,

it's weird. Like I was, what I was going to try to find, some guy who used to be, I don't know in what capacity he was a makeup artist but he's got a bunch of molds

that I don't know if the studio was going to throw them out or what but he sent me David Bowie's face. I think it must have been a mold from

Man Who Fell to Earth maybe or The Hunger, I don't know but he painted it as's face. I think it must have been a mold from Man Who Fell to Earth, maybe, or The Hunger. I don't know. But he painted it as Ziggy. So I have it downstairs, and it's very eerie. I mean, now that he's passed, I've got almost like this death mask. But he seems to have a business of it. I don't know where he got them all, but it sounds like they throw that stuff away eventually. They do.

I mean, a lot of them you can get online. I don't have a David Bowie. I have a bunch of life masks of people that I've taken. Sure. And I've traded with people and stuff like that. Oh, really? So it's kind of a fun world of life masks? Yeah, yeah.

You know, but it's cool. I mean, you know, because, I mean, faces were my business, you know. Sure, man. And, you know, you see different things on different life masks. And you have them. Yeah, he sent me a Robin Williams one, too. Yeah. Which is kind of like heavy, man.

Yeah, he just sends you dead people. Yeah, all just dead people everyone's gonna be dead soon eventually well i had my first life mask taken when i was 13 of you yeah my dad my dad helped me and it was because you were experimenting well i wanted to make a mask you know i mean i my very first masks i made there was a model kit called the visible. It was like a clear plastic head that had- I remember you could see the eyes and the brains and everything. Yeah, yeah. And I had that from my doctor days, wanting to be a doctor. Yeah, sure.

And I sculpted my first masks on that, but they didn't quite fit. Oh, and you used that as the base? Yeah. Yeah. And then, so I needed a life mask. And actually, I think it was my seventh grade, um, science fair project. I had to do a science fair thing. And I was like, oh, all right, I'm making a mask.

It's kind of like science, you know? So I did it. Definitely science. Yeah. So I did a, uh, you know, how to, how to make a mask science fair project. And I thought, okay, this is the time to do the life mask. There's actually pictures in the book of, uh, we cut a hole in cardboard and put it. So it only went this far in my face, you know cut a hole in cardboard and put it, so it only went this far

in my face. And, you know, my dad put plaster on my face and straws in my nose. Yeah. Which is, every actor who you ever see on TV

when they talk about having a life cast, they say they had plaster on my face and straws in my nose. That's it. But we don't do that. Not anymore?

No. I mean, I did that when I was 13 and I realized how you don't want to do this to somebody. Yeah. I pulled out my eyelashes, my eyebrows. I did, I mean, I did that when I was 13. And I realized how you don't want to do this to somebody, you know, pulled out my eyelashes, my eyebrows, I did, you know, we put Vaseline on my face. Yeah, it didn't work. It still pulled out a lot of stuff in the straws in the nose, just get in but you know i'm swear and you know maybe you know

this because you act and stuff but i swear there's a book that actor do they give to actors they say when you go on you know jimmy fallon or whatever you say that they put straws in my nose and plaster on my face i don't know anybody that does that but every actor says that yeah maybe maybe that's what they sense do you not stick anything in the nose no just work around the nostrils that's it yeah even john hurt an elephant man uh i'm sure they didn't put straws in his nose? No. Just work around the nostrils. That's it? Yeah. Even John Hurt, an elephant man? I'm sure they didn't put straws in his nose.

Well, how, what's the, well, I don't want to just jump into asking trivia questions. So what's the arc of it? Because you've done the makeup in like

these major movies that have defined all of our lives. Right? I mean, literally your creations have haunted, you know,

enlightened. It's just it's a very odd thing because I'm not even a horror or sci fi guy, but I've seen most of a lot of the movies that you've done. And it's just sort of mind blowing because there's a couple of things that you've done that I think disturbed me for like long periods of my life. Good. So so what is the arc of how do you begin to study what you know you committed when you were 10 but what is you you know you went to regular life after that right you you went to elementary school and high school and i didn't and then that was it did you get into film after that uh you know i it's funny wings i i know i'm an only child my mother had a bad heart

and and they said uh to her that she really shouldn't have children. And, I mean, that's why I always felt loved and wanted, because they said to her, you know, you could die or something bad can happen to the kid. Yeah. And I didn't realize until I got older and started to talk to people how not everybody has great parents, you know. That's true. And I had very loving and very supportive, positive thinking parents. And, you know, when I said I didn't want to be a doctor anymore, I wanted to make monsters, you know, instead of sending me to my room without my dinner, you know, they said, you

can do anything that you set your mind to. Well, if you got one kid, you don't want him hating you for the rest of the time. Yeah, I suppose so. You know, make that kid as happy as possible. Everybody's happy. Yeah. And, you know, the good thing was, again, because the creativity was discouraged in my father's lifetime, he encouraged it in mine. So I benefited from that.

Well, what do you think about that, about only childness? Because, like, I know Robin Williams was also an only child, and he sort of was kind of fond of, you know, action figures, soldiers, like, you know, creating worlds. Do you think that some of that was based on a kind of loneliness? I mean, I also was painfully shy as a kid. Uh, I mean, I could not speak to an adult. You know,

I basically stayed in my bedroom and made stuff. My bedroom was my workshop. Yeah. Um, and that again was something that fascinated me about makeup. The first time I just even smeared grease paint on my face. Yeah. you know, I put white grease paint on my face and black around my eyes. And then when the face in the mirror wasn't me anymore and it was freeing, I could do things that I couldn't do as little Ricky Baker. Yeah. And it showed me the power of makeup as well. You know, you know that you could, when you, it's a really strange thing to look out of your eyes and just see a different face looking back at you. Yeah. I imagine some people experience that every day for the wrong reasons.

Who am I? What am I doing? I notice it as I get older. Like, it's weird that when there is a consistency to looking at yourself, which you do every day, you don't really see it until one day you're like, when did that happen? Yeah. Oh, and I know. I look in the mirror and there's this old man looking back at me and I go, where did he come from? Is this a makeup? Yeah.

So how do you get started in show business? Well, it's hard. Yeah. I, again, in Covina, it isn't like living here in the valley. There's no film people out there. Of course not. But it sounds like by the time you, at know at least what you went to high school right i did and did you do theater in high school did you provide i did a drama class and i did makeups

for plays and stuff like that you did did you did you do anything spectacular that not so spectacular i mean there wasn't the time or the money or anything i mean i think the biggest thing i did we did camelot and i did youhuh. And I did, you know, made some beards and, you know, did Merlin and, you know, things like that, you know. But yeah, and we did an arsenic and a lace, so I got to do kind of a Frankenstein-like.

Right. But you knew all these classic monsters. You knew, like, Karloff's Frankenstein and Cheney's Wolfman and, like, right? Oh, yeah, and I love that stuff. And the classic Cheney Sr. one with the sharp teeth and the top hat. London, London after midnight film. Yeah.

One of my favorite makeups. Cheney's original, I mean the Phantom of the Opera. Yeah. London after midnight. I mean, all of Cheney's stuff is brilliant. Wasn't there, there was some, it was in a book how he went about doing his stuff. Yeah. There's Cecil Holland who was an old makeup artist around.

And I think he, Cecil actually helped Chaney. Chaney did his own makeups, but I believe, you know, when you, that type of makeup, especially,

you know, with putty and stuff, doesn't last and needs constant touch up. And as an actor, you know, acting, he was concentrating

on his performance. Right. So I'm sure, you know, he probably put it on and probably had Cecil maintain it. Well,

I think that was, that was the interesting thing about Chaney. My recollection as a kid was that he did his own makeup. Oh, yeah. Right? That he, you know, and there was,

I remember there was some sort of photographic essay of him transforming himself. Yeah, and there's pictures of him with a makeup kid. Yeah, yeah, right, right. No, and he was great, and he was great at making great faces, you know, and I, there's a movie called Man of a Thousand Faces.

I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Yeah. It's the story of him. Oh, yeah. James Cagney played him. Right. But, I mean, not that he was a bad actor. Yeah.

Physically, just was so wrong. Wrong for that. And the makeups were done, again, with the new modern techniques of rubber and stuff. And they don't compare to what Chaney did out of the kit. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you're in high school and you're just doing basic stuff.

But, in the back of your head, you know about this other stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, I met when I turned 13, my parents, because I was going to be a teenager, they said, you know, is there something, we'd like to do something special for your birthday. Yeah. And I said, can you, this is when Universal first opened up the tour. Oh, wow. And I said, can we go on the Universal tour? Yeah.

And in my head, I was going to hop off the tram and run to the makeup department and get a job, you know. He had a plan. Yeah. And also, I knew that there was a mask-making company called Don Post Studios that was in Burbank. It was near Universal. Uh-huh. Who made these Universal Classic Monster masks that sold for $35, which was astronomical. You know, never bought one, i you could buy them yeah you know

they were sold them at disneyland in different places were like apes and stuff no it's like it was you know frankenstein yeah yeah um but the i knew that they were near universal so when we got near universal i asked my dad if we could stop at a phone booth and look up Don Post Studios. And again, I had him call because I was shy. And he said, you know, my son, Ricky makes masks and we're in the neighborhood. Is there any way we can come by? And they said, yeah, come on by. And they gave us a tour, which was great. And on the wall, there was a picture of this guy, Bob Burns, who I read about in my monster magazines. And he had done some makeup stuff, had a gorilla suit and a mummy and was a film editor.

And it had his phone number. So I wrote it down. And again, being too shy to call him, eventually I got, you know, I asked my dad if he would call Bob, who lives in Burbank. And they invited us over. And he became a friend and like a mentor.

And he introduced me to makeup artists that he worked at CBS, the local CBS station, uh, who did the newscasters and stuff. Yeah. Didn't do the kind of stuff I wanted to do, you know, but he was really impressed by what I had done. And he said, I want to take you to the union, the makeup union. How old are you? I was 15 then.

Yeah. Went to the makeup union, uh, the business rep at that time, it was all nepotism. You know, you had to be born was 15 then. Yeah. Went to the makeup union, the business rep. At that time, it was all nepotism. You know, you had to be born into the business. Right. And, you know, I went there with a box full of stuff, you know, photos, heads, all kinds of stuff. And I thought I was going to get a job, you know. And he told me to give up that I was never going to get in.

And he said, you know, you basically had to be born into the business. You don't know anybody in the business. You don't have any friends in the business. You're never going to get to. Was he nasty? He was nasty, but I also think he was being realistic, you know, cause that's the way it was at the time. You know, and he said, you, to get in, you have to serve an apprenticeship. You have to be 21 years old. I was 15. That's good information. Yeah. And he said, and the apprenticeships, there's only a few of them and they're going to go to a Westmore or, you know, the brother of a Westmore's uncle. Westmore's a big name in Bangkok?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot. One time, all the Westmores, every studio had a Westmore as a department head. No kidding. Yeah, so, I mean, that was a little bit discouraging. When you're a shy kid, it must have hurt your feelings. You got to walk out with your box of stuff. Yeah.

With my tail between my legs, yeah. But it was kind of like, you know, fuck'm gonna show you you know and it gave me that much more motivation oh yeah you know and but the union fought me my career my whole career really yeah because i did i mean you won seven oscars i know and i got hate mail from the union when I got Oscars because, uh, they were saying, you're not a real makeup artist, you know? And it's like, what are you talking about? And I go, you know, real makeup artists. I'm all, well, let me cut to, there was an open period, the producers association who said there's no new blood in the industry. Yeah. All this nepotism thing isn't working very well. It was like a lot of people that weren't very good at their jobs.

Must be stifling innovation. Yeah, it was, yeah. And they said, we want to have this open period so that if you have 30 days on a non-union film, we'll accept you as a union member. At that time, I was working on King Kong, the Dina De Laurentiis King Kong. You've done two Kongs. That's crazy.

I know. I was King Kong, and I killed King Kong. I actually cut the two together at one time. You did for fun? Well, I actually did. I always planned on cutting it together. But miraculously, they both were on two different TV channels and they lined up almost perfectly. So I would- Jackson's Kong and-

Yeah. So I would flip between me getting shot and then me shooting Kong and the other one. But anyways, i had this i thought okay i'm at i called up the union i said i'm at mgm i'm working in the old makeup lab which was built when they you know when they were doing wizard of oz yeah things um and i want these days to count and the business rep came out and he goes well what you're doing isn't makeup and i go what do you mean it isn't makeup and he goes it's not makeup. Like, this lab has been here since the 30s. What were you doing, building a monkey?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Which traditionally had been done by makeup artists. Yeah. You know, Charlie Gamora was a great ape actor guy who was a makeup artist. Yeah. He was one of them.

He built the best gorilla suits ever. How did they define it? Well, that's what I said. I said, what is makeup then if this isn't it? Yeah. He says, buying a product and putting it on someone's face and i went okay i have black makeup and i paint around my eyes black so these days should count and he says no in that case you're an actor doing his own makeup so you wouldn't count my days so you're actually playing the ape

i played the ape yeah and built it yeah but you played the big ape yeah i mean it was all blue screen you know i mean the whole publicity was about this 40 foot robot uh which is in less than six seconds of the movie and your kong and the rest of it yeah yeah uh sweating sweating my brains out uh you know on on this was you know all blue screen photochemical blue screen compositing days where you needed so much light yeah and. And it was during the summer. Oh, my God. The whole crew's in, like, shorts and T-shirts or no shirts, and I have a suit made out of bear hide with, you know,

six inches of foam rubber on me. Oh, my God. And that was your construction? Yeah, I had to do it. It was a combined. Dino wanted this guy, Italian guy Carlo Rambaldi, to work on it as well. Uh-huh.

A makeup artist? No, what he did, like, effects. Oh. And italdi, to work on it as well. A makeup artist? No, what he did, like effects. And it was Carlo's idea to build the big robot. And he said, this robot can do the whole movie. And they... Did Dino like the robot? Well, it was good publicity. You know, it sounds much better

than some joker wearing a monkey suit. Classic, classic monkey suit. Yeah, and they were keeping me under wraps. And one day, you know, I would put the suit. Yeah, and they were, you know, they were keeping me under wraps and one day, you know, I would put the suit on in the morning

and I had hard scleral lenses I put in my eyes, you know. The black ones? Yeah, well, they just were full-eye hard plastic lenses

that I put in in the morning, take off at lunch, put them back in. Anyways, I'm sitting on the set totally dressed like an ape and John Gillerman,

the director of the film, came up to me and goes, Time Magazine's going to be doing an article on the movie. We don't ape and John Gillerman the director of the film came up to me and goes Time Magazine's going to be doing an article on the movie we don't want him to know that you're playing King Kong

so if the reporter asks you don't tell him it's like John I got a fucking gorilla suit on I mean what am I

going to tell him you know and what they did they stupidly did was they showed him like 20 minutes of footage all of it me you know and then he go now we're going to take you and show you the big robot which wasn't finished at the time right so it's in the mill at mgm and it's in pieces and being constructed and they go here it is you know and he goes well i want to see the finished robot you know and they

went uh he goes i'm going to see the robot that did all the stuff that I just saw, you know. Right. And they went, um, you know, so.

That guy. How stupid were they? Right. So, so that's where it came out that I played King Kong, you know, or otherwise I probably

never would, nobody would know. That's crazy. So like when, so when Jessica Lange's in the hand, that's the robot. That's a big,

the mechanical hands were great and that was actually built by Glenn Robinson who was an old, So it's different than the robot. That's just the hand. Yeah, the hands and a guy named eddie sirkin was the guy

main main guy involved with that and those work beautifully uh i was involved with that it was based on the sculpture of my hand that yeah the suit hand and right i i directed the people that were sculpting the big hands but i mean i was the only time i was ever even on the stage with jessica i think was there's a scene where she's in the hands and it kind of takes her clothes off. Yeah. And there's a shot over my shoulder. So they had me up on a big rostrum and they had a split diopter lens that could focus on close and far. Oh, wow.

And so she was way down there. In the hand? In the big hands. And so I was just, you know, being the back of my head. But the rest of the time I'm looking at a hand that isn't there that's supposed to have Jessica in it. And she's looking at an ape that isn't there. Oh, it's so wild. That's like such – I was talking to my buddy about it.

It's when people watch this stuff, even you as a kid, I mean, you know it's an illusion. And you know it's not real. And it's not even about – it's the effectiveness of the illusion that is what it's all about it's not it's not about realism in a way right yeah i mean i love ray harryhausen films the stop motion animation stuff you know and i knew that it wasn't real and also i mean fortunately again my dad was smart enough to know he knew what stop motion was you know i had a friend uh who you know asked his mother how they did the emir from 20 20 million miles to earth and she goes oh it's a they shaved a squirrel you know and it was like you know it's not you know it's an armatured puppet that you should frame at a time you know my dad knew about

that and i did stop motion as a kid you know yeah sure now wait now let's not leave that story hanging now how did you did you argue yourself to get the time to count for Kong for the union? I did. Oh. But he wouldn't let it count. He wouldn't? No, he said it doesn't. And it was an open period. It was the exact time I was on King Kong.

What the fuck? Yeah. So what it was is they didn't like the rubber stuff because they didn't do it. And there were very few people. And the people who did do it, they called it lab men. They didn't call them makeup artists. They were lab men. They were dirty.

You know, they worked with plaster and clay. So there was a snobbery to it. There was, you know. Huh. It's a completely different world now. I mean, they totally accept me as a makeup artist, makeup effects. Good.

Well, congratulations. Yeah. And now I've retired, you know, so. Only like, what, 50 years in the game? Yeah. More? Yeah. They accept it? Yeah, eventually know, so. Only like, what, 50 years in the game? Yeah. More? Yeah. They accept it?

Yeah, eventually. Seven Oscars. Yeah. Innovation. That's crazy, the stubbornness of institutions. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, they actually were changed. They were going to change.

When I did get in the union and I got in on a lie, what happened on King Kong, I got a script for a movie called The ghoul from outer space yeah and you know this king kong was my first like major picture and at that time it was the most expensive picture made yeah and i i was doing non-union low budget films before that right that's all i could do and uh i kind of thought i kind of it's going to be a step backwards to the movie called the ghoul from outer space so i i thought, I'll turn in a high bid and they probably will say no. And I think I said, it costs $10,000 to do all these things,

you know? And they said, okay. And I went, okay, I need one other thing. I said, I need you to post date checks so that I have 30 days as a make,

to make the window. Yeah. Yeah. And they did. So I got in and a lie. Oh, that's great. And a bunch of people, really good people got in during. Yeah. And they did. So I got in in a lie. Oh, that's great. And a bunch of people,

really good people got in during that period and the union called us all 30 Day Wonders. And did it change the face of the industry? It definitely changed the face of the industry. People got in

because they really wanted to be makeup artists. And taking it in a new direction. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, people are going,

you know, you're the worst thing to ever have, you know, the business reps, the worst thing to ever have in the art of makeup. And I went,

why? I mean, I idolize makeup artists. All I ever wanted to be was a makeup artist. Yeah. And I want to be the best I can possibly be. I eat, sleep, and drink and live this stuff. Yeah. What's wrong with that?

You know? They had a problem with the, it was, so their basic problem was prosthetics and things that were outside of the realm of something almost archaic, it seems, with makeup. Yeah. And I think part of it was, too, I mean, I had some ability and I was young. And I think it was a threat thing, too, you know. It's interesting that things get so, that it's not about the creativity anymore. It's about status quo. Well, you know, the union's main job during that time especially was to protect the incompetent.

You know, I mean, you would, there would be guys that, you know, you couldn't, you would have to hire. Everybody that was in the union had to be hired before you could hire somebody that was out of it. And there were people that just weren't very good. They were always on the bottom of the list. Yeah, I guess that's still, it's an interesting issue, you know, around in terms of hiring and stuff, that this business in particular seems to carry a lot of people, a lot of dead weight that just keep moving around because of nepotism or relationships. And they keep out a lot of people that would bring fresh eyes to and fresh talent. Yeah, it's unfortunate. It's a lot better than it used to be. Sure. I mean, know i mean mind you now anyone can do it at home on in a way yeah

yeah and also though i mean it i mean it's an it's a necessary evil i mean you know the producers would i mean as it is i i was thinking about this the other day i you know i thought god i can't the hours that i work you know normal film days a film day is a 12 hour day. Yeah. But when you add on top of it, a three and a half hour makeup in the morning, right. And an hour removal time, and set up time, you know, I, my normal day was an 18 hour day. Sure. I did like 50 years of that. I'm surprised I'm still alive. Yeah. You seem really well. So, okay. So that was Kong, but how do you get started? What's the first movies? How do you learn? Okay, my first film was a movie called The Octoman.

Yeah. I was a full-time student at a community college basically to stay out of Vietnam. In Covina? It was in Walnut, out in that area. My hobby was an expensive hobby to make masks and stuff. I found a place where I could buy a cord of rubber. It was like $8.98 or something. And I was getting like a quarter-a-week allowance when my parents could afford it.

I would mow lawns, but I have major allergies, so that was hard. I thought, I need a job because I want more materials. And I walked. I didn't have a car, so I walked to every fast food place, every market to try to find a job. Nobody, nobody wanted me for some reason in Covina, almost in, in Glendora, Cloaky studios, which was a place that made Gumby and Davey and Goliath was located out there. My dad, when he was a truck driver delivering plumbing supplies, accidentally, it was next door to where he was supposed to deliver it, walked in there by accident. And he says, well, you know,

I remember this place in Covina that did stop motion. You know, maybe you could get a job there. For Gumby? Yeah. So I walked there with a box full of stuff, again, like when I went to the union. Yeah. And I can sculpt, I can make molds,

I do stop motion, I paint. I'm looking for a job. And they said start tomorrow. And this was summer between my junior and they said, start tomorrow. And this was summer between my junior and senior year of high school. Really? So I would walk to three, three and a half miles to work every day and walk back. What were you doing over there? I, well, I did mostly, they called me an artist. You know, I, I, I made, I sculpted some of the puppets, made the molds, cast the rubber. And you were in high school? I was in high school. Yeah.

But those are, those are seminal. Those are like, everyone knows those. Yeah, no, it was really cool. Oh, no, no, Davey. Yeah, that's right. God is everywhere, Davey. I heard that voice forward and backwards every day. Did you know the guy?

Hal John Smith did the voice. It was Otis the Drunk in Andy Griffith's show. Oh, really? Yeah, and the guy who did Pokey was actually the production manager at Cloakies. But one of the animators was a guy named Sneaky Pete Kleino. Pete Kleino was his name. Yeah. But he was a pedal steel guitar player, session pedal steel guitar player, played with everybody.

Yeah. Amazing. And he was like 30 years old and I was like 17. And I thought, you know, this guy's cool and he's 30 years old. It's nice that you could be cool when you're 30. Yeah. But we used to get in major like clay fights, which was crazy. You know, we'd wad up gumbees and throw them at each other, you know, on the stage where everybody's doing stop motion, you know, and it's a frame at a time and it takes forever.

Yeah. We would hit a set, you know, days work would be good. But Cloakies was like a magnet for anybody that was interested. It was one of the few places that did stop motion. So people started coming in. And there was another guy a few years older than me, Doug Beswick, who worked there, who like read Famous Monsters. He was a Ray Harryhausen fan. We became fast friends.

He knew other people that did this stuff. Yeah. So all of a sudden there was this group that I would hang out with that were these guys that did stop motion and special effects. Yeah. And go, you know, maybe someday we can work on a real movie. Right. And so many of us have Oscars now. Really?

In the same group of people. And you're still in touch with them? Yeah. And Dennis Murin, who was one of them, has more Oscars than I do. Wow. But it was through this connection that I actually got handed down my first job,

this Octoman job. Originally, it was going to be stop motion. A guy named Jim Danforth was going to do it. They decided it was too expensive. He suggested they build a suit, and they hired a couple of other people that were going to do a suit. Right.

Another film came along at the time called Flesh Gordon, which was a porno movie. Yes, I remember that. I remember when I was a kid, the posters for it. It was like a soft porn, though, right? Yeah, well, it started out as hardcore porn, but when these guys, because the jobs were, there

weren't many jobs to make rocket ships and effects. So I guess that's the makeup artist is their trick. Their angle also was trying to draw a line between special effects and makeup. Well, that's the thing. What I do is a gray area. Right. And to me, I found it as the evolution of makeup. Yeah, that's the thing. What I do is a gray area. Right. You know, and to me, I found it as the evolution of makeup.

Yeah, that makes sense. You know, it started out with nose piety and grease paint, you know, and then they went to rubber stuff and people objected to the rubber stuff, you know. And I, you know,

one of the things like when I did American Werewolf, with the transformation, we made these prop heads that actually physically changed. Right. And they really objected to that. They go, it's not on our person, it's not makeup.

And I go, but it's, I couldn't do it on a person. I carried it through, started out with makeup and ended up with this. Right. I see it as the evolution of makeup. I don't like the limitations. I mean, I started doing puppets and animatronic stuff because a makeup on a person's face, you can only build up so much. The eyes are where they are.

Yeah. You know, the nose is, if you have a big nose like mine, you can't make it smaller. Right. You can make it bigger. Right. I make a puppet head, I can put the eyes wherever I want. Yeah. You know, I like that. And more than two sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, I didn't like the limitations. I don't like, you know. Of the human head. Yeah. Let's make a head. Yes.

We can do whatever we want. So, you know, I just considered it, you know. And I like making stuff, you know. So, Octoman, did it turn out to be a stop action or not? No, it was a suit. And these guys were going to do it, but it went on to Flesh Gordon because it was more up there. Oh, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, they handed it over to me. First thing, it was designed by somebody else, a fantasy artist designed this Octopus Man thing. They gave me a drawing. They wanted me to do a maquette, which was like a little model. Yeah. So I did a maquette. And then they said, do you want the job? And again, I was a full-time student.

It was like the end of my second year. At the community college? Yeah. Yeah. And I said, yeah, I'll do it. And I had like six weeks, I think, and $1,000. And my friend, Doug Beswick, who I met at Cloakies, had a little workshop. This was more than I could do in my bedroom.

So we actually figured out a way to make this suit for $1,000. It's the best thing in the movie. I mean, the movie was shot in 10 days at Bronson Caves. Everything was there. We lost a day shooting because of a stupid accident. And the director was actually tearing pages out of the script. We don't need this. We don't need that.

Wow. And, you know, it was my real introduction to the film industry. And in the first day's filming, you know, they said it's going to be Bronson Caves. You know, I went there with Doug Beswick. We have our octopus man suit in his car, this 57 Chevy. And it's like, nobody there. And we're like looking around, looking around and go, what the hell? Did we get something wrong?

So we had to go back down the hill to a pay phone. This is before cell phones. Called a production office. And they go, oh yeah, we pushed for a day. And it's like, you didn't tell us. Well, we forgot. It's like, the movie's called The Octoman. You know, I mean, through my whole life, I go, you know, the movie's called Gremlins. You know, the movie's called, you know, you're doing tell us. Well, we forgot. It's like, the movie's called The Octoman, you know? I mean, through my whole life,

I go, you know, the movie's called Gremlins. You know, the movie's called, you know, you're doing this thing and that seems to be the least important thing in anybody's mind,

you know? Right. Yeah. We got the guy. The thing. But that was, so you got a good foundation then of the insanity.

Yeah. I saw that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, you know, but still. In what way? the troubleshooting or the just the the consistency or what the glamour all those things yeah you know and you know i thought you're doing a movie called octoman i'm the guy that makes the octoman it's important yeah and you know they again they i at that time i was a long-haired kid yeah my friend doug bezwick was a long-haired kid. Yeah. My friend Doug Beswick was a long-haired kid. The guy who was the DP called us the girls.

Oh, right. This was, you know, and it was just like, oh, come on, man. I just want to do this stuff and make it cool. Yeah, right. I was like, you know. We're here for the, we're going to make it cool and fun. But the good thing that happened is my second movie, which was a film called Schlock, was John Landis' first film. I was 20, he was 21 i got the

job because first john worked at it as a mailboy at fox yeah he knew john chambers who did planet of the apes yeah he saw a film called trog which was a joan crawford film about a missing link that's really kind of a sad thing to watch right end of her career in this crappy monster movie and he was just so inspired by how bad trorog was that he wanted to make a movie like that. So he did the Schlock Throppus, which was this ape man. He went to John Chambers. Chambers said, you know, it'd be $100,000. And he'd go, no, the movie's only going to cost $15,000, you know.

Then he went to Don Post Studios where I would go to buy rubber and supplies because there weren't suppliers around, you know. It was hard to find this stuff. And I, at, it was the only time in my life I had a business card and, you know, it says Rick Baker, Monster Maker, and I gave it to him and they wanted nothing to do with John and they, they gave him a price, but they go, there's a kid who comes in here anyway. So they gave him my card and John, John came out again. I'm still pretty shy at this point. And he lived in in westwood he drove to covina uh with his business partner his producer uh john o'rourke but it's like you know where the fuck am i i'm still in california you know it was like you know i've never driven this far before this you know and but he was like he came into my bedroom which was my sacred space without you know

i had those masks and things everywhere yeah and he's like touching and he's like you know he's john's very hyper and loud and he was flipping out and I was kind of flipping out in the other way because I was scared, you know, and,

but, you know, it turned out to be, you know, one of the best things that ever happened to me because I did Schlock. Yeah.

He had already written American Werewolf. He told me the whole story. Yeah. So I want to do a transformation. To me, it doesn't make sense that you would sit in a chair

like Lon Chaney Jr. and be perfectly still until you change. I want to show the pain. I want to, you know, I want to do it in, the movie takes, it's real. It takes place in an apartment. It's not going to have a horror film like, you know. And he goes, I want him to be able to move.

You know, how would you do that? And I go, I don't know, but I sure would like to try. You know, he goes, what's going to be my next movie? You know, cut to 10 years later, he finally got the money to make it. Well, that's sort of the interesting thing about when I was going through this stuff is that there's a lot of problem solving. You know that, you know, you have a director that has a vision like that. Specifically, it seems like that request of you or whether or not you could do the transformation and show the agony of it was in a completely new interpretation of a fairly classic trope, which is the wolf man in horror movies.

You've been seen it a million times, right? So you got, and it seems like in this genre, in horror and fantasy and science fiction, you do have like 10 to 15 archetypes that sort of evolve. The new challenge is how do we make this alien different than the last alien how do we make this ape different than the last ape how is this wolf man going to be different yeah and so that challenge you know that's not just makeup i mean there's a sort of engineering oh yeah no i mean i you know it's so many times i have to invent things that have been done before in a film on in a schedule and budget you know i mean

the weird thing was i mean prior to american Werewolf I would have to beg people to let me do something you know can I put a mustache on this guy how about a scar you know it's like you worked with um uh what's his name Dick Smith yes uh Dick was the greatest makeup artist ever I think and and uh he helped me out a lot he lived in New York. And I managed to meet him when I was 18. How did you do that? I had a school project where I was supposed to look up somebody in who's who in America. When I was in eighth grade or something. And I looked up Dick Smith.

And I looked up Boris Karloff and all these people. And they had his address. And I wrote it down on a piece of paper. Again, I mean mean this to me would be like writing a letter to God you know I mean I was afraid you knew about him I knew about him and I what which work of his was the most powerful to you there's everything they did to just look so much more real than anybody else I remember that his makeup on a little big man that opening up with Jack Crabb the

opening of Dustin Hoffman and that makeup with that cigarette, that was mind-blowing at the time. And I was a kid. Oh, yeah. Well, I got to watch him put that makeup on because this is right when I wrote him. Anyways, I had this piece of paper. Yeah. It's a dress. When I graduated from high school, my parents were going to go back to Binghamton, New York, so I could meet my grandmother, who was like 90 and dying.

And I was like, oh, shit, I don't want to go to New York. I want to make masks. Now I'm out of school. You know, it's a summer, you know. And they went, oh, wait, New York, you know. I got that magic piece of paper with it. Right. And I go, okay, it's now or never.

So, you know, I wrote Dick a letter. It's in the book, actually. Yeah. My mom typed it for me, you know, hoping to get a response. And I sent him pictures of things that I'd made. A lot of things were copies of his of that makeup that he did and i got this amazing response that he just says i've never seen anything like this from anybody let alone an 18 year old kid yeah uh i can't wait to

meet you you know and i thought you know it was right at the beginning of this two-week trip to new york i thought it was going to be hello mr smith and i you know spent a half an hour right he sent my parents away who drove me there and he gave me a yellow legal pad and he goes i'm going to tell you a lot of stuff you should write it down so you don't forget it it's like okay you know yeah told me anything i wanted to know you know he was about the process yeah and formulas and all kinds of stuff and i just couldn't wait to get back home to you know use this use this. So he saw you as a, you know, he, he, he said, this is the next guy in his mind. He's like, this guy gets it and he needs, he, I need, he's a repository for this information. Yes. Yes. But he was, he was that way with everybody. He

was very open because he on the East coast and he was self-taught and he, he talked to Hollywood people and trying to find out how to do things. And it was like, you know trade secret you know we're not going to tell you so he figured out his own way and it was a better way you know what were his specialties uh well he he did you know the most realistic human old age and and that kind of stuff but also invented he was very inventive he invented materials and and processes that nobody had done before so when i sent him that letter i got this amazing reply. Yeah. I'd go to the mailbox every day, you know, and one day it was like,

oh, Rick Baker, and it was Dick Smith, and it was spongy. And he actually gave me a bad foam casting of one of the makeups I copied that he did. But there was also a picture of a little big man makeup, a test that he did. Yeah. And he goes, you know,

besides saying he can't wait to meet me, he goes, we're going to be filming in the Veterans Hospital in Westwood. If you want to come watch me apply, you know, that would be great. Yeah. And he goes, you know, besides saying he can't wait to meet me, he goes, we're going to be filming in the Veterans Hospital in Westwood. If you want to come watch me apply, you know, that would be great. Yeah. So I got to watch him put that makeup on. How long did that take? I think it was like three hours or so.

So you're sitting there with Dustin? Yeah. You know, I, again, I was trying to stay out of the way, you know, and just hang back and watch. But you were in technique? Yeah. And watched how he puts the pieces on. Yeah. And what Dick did, which people in Hollywood, in Hollywood, everybody was doing one big piece.

Yeah. You know, that would have been basically you pull it over your head and glue it around the eyes. Dick made overlapping appliances. And the reason being you can actually glue it, you know, because it's glued everywhere. And if there's a spot that's not glued, if you miss when it moves, it does a weird buckle. Uh-huh. know, because it's glued everywhere. And if there's a spot that's not glued, if you miss when it moves, it does a weird buckle. So he would do these separate pieces that overlapped and it was better at applying and it moved better. And, uh, you know, it was great to be able to watch him do a makeup and a little big man, you know, and Dustin Hoffman, you know, he, uh, I have this really vivid memory of him, uh, cause it was, you know, this

veterans hospital, they had like a padded room with a little glass window, and he went in this padded room and screamed at the top of his lungs to try to make his voice sound raspy. So I actually, you know, I actually looked through the little window and kind of looked up, and there's this 120-year-old man, you know, sitting there screaming, you know. It's just like so crazy, you know. It's wild, man.

I mean, that's the thing is, you know, I mean, it's something I found out when I read the book, you know, like. Your book? Yeah, I complain too much about the industry, but it's an amazing industry where you get to do and see and meet people. It's magic. Yeah, you know, and it's unbelievable. I mean, it's like time traveling. You know, you go like when I did The Wolfman, you know, in London, you look around and it's like you're in the 1800s, you know, when you're filming that stuff. That was the Benicio one?

Yeah. Yeah. I think you got an Oscar for that, right? I did. Yeah. Yeah. That movie was a really weird vibe. They didn't, a movie called The Wolfman, the only people that really wanted to make a movie called The Wolfman

is me and Dave Elsie and Lou Elsie who I did it with and Benicio and Anthony Hopkins but the directors and the producers

were like embarrassed that they were doing a monster movie you know and what the hell they do it for that's what I said you know

and we were like the low man on the totem pole like the bastard children you know and I mean I had the production manager

would call me in the office and go why are you ordering this hair you know I go what do go, why are you ordering this hair? You know, I go, what do you mean? Why am I ordering this hair? And they go, what?

You got a bunch of hair here. You know, what's that for? And behind his desk is a big sign says Wolfman. Yeah. So I got up and I covered up the wolf part and I go, we're making a movie called The Wolfman. Without the hair, we have a man. Yeah. You know, I'm going to make him a wolf.

And you need hair for that? He goes, yes. It's like, you know i'm gonna make him a wolf and you need hair for that you go yes it's like you know come on that's crazy so d but you worked on you worked with dick uh on movies later i worked i got to work on the exorcist yeah dick i was again in 20 i think um and what you were 20 yeah um something like early 20s anyways he was a one-man show he worked in his basement yeah and the rubber stuff you know you have to use once and throw away so we call them appliances or prosthetics right so like linda's makeup yeah um they he did a number of designs you had to do it every day new yeah you

had to have a new piece every day but he had did a number of tests they chose one he prepared all that stuff because when he's filming he couldn't be making these things it takes like a a day of baking the rubber before you can open it up and find out if it worked. Wow. So he had like, you know, 50 some sets all made. The very first day that she is in her makeup, Dick puts it on. She comes out in like one of the grips or an electrician or something goes, oh, look, she's got her mask on now. And Billy Freak and the director went, it's too masky. Do another one.

You know, and Dick goes, what? You know, and it's like, it's too masky. Do another one. You know, and Dick goes, what? You know, and it's like, it's too masky. Do another one. He goes, we're filming. I, you know, I worked for months, you know, I, you know, and so his solution was call up me. And I came out and lived in his house and worked in his basement on The Exorcist, you know.

Yeah. And how cool was that? Because Friedkin was crazy. Well, no, I mean, Friedkin was right, actually. I say, you know, actually, sometimes directors areist, you know? Yeah. And how cool is that? Because Friedkin was crazy. Well, no, I mean, Friedkin was right, actually. I say, you know, actually, sometimes directors are right, you know? And that was one of the cases, you know, and I was outraged. I mean, how could you question Dick Smith? Yeah.

You know, the greatest makeup artist ever, you know? And I wanted to punch Friedkin, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I was there when Dick was trying these different things out, and William Peter Blatty and Freak Room to come in and make suggestions

and stuff. Wild. Yeah. But, you know, I got to work on that film. And you were on the set and you, you know. I was mostly

in Dick's basement during filming, making the pieces. I did get to go to Iraq and help him with Max Fonsito's makeup, which that's the best makeup in the movie.

You know, Max has an age makeup. He's Father Marin, the old priest, but people don't realize he was made up, you know. And those are the hardest kind of makeups to pull off. Well, yeah, and you did that with the, you know, I remember the autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,

which was a big deal when, I mean, I was 10, but I remember my mom watched it. I remember it was this amazing revelation of the aging makeup yeah and i was i was like 20 again in my early 20s but you earned that stuff from dick right yeah yeah and that was like didn't you get an emmy for that i did get in stan winston and i did it together and we both got in stan winston he was an old timer right yeah who's now passed yeah he was one of the big guys yeah yeah it was stan I were the two considered the top at the time.

How old was he? Older than you, no? He was a little bit older than me, but he died younger than I am now. Oh, really? I'm almost 69. He think he was 66 or something. That's sad.

Yeah. I just found it interesting that there was in the books, which are stunning books, two volumes, all pictures, a lot of great, you know, there's the story of you. There's a foreword by Landis, is it? Or by Peter Jackson? Both, yeah.

Peter Jackson, John Landis, Dick Smith does the outro, the afterword or whatever. Right, which he wrote years ago. Is he still with us? No, he passed a number of years ago. Yeah. I mean, i knew i was going to do this book and i asked him to but it was sort of interesting to me to have that realization that you know you're dealing you know you deal with a lot of apes you deal with a lot of

aliens you know and it seems that uh and then you know these the human transformations the work you did with eddie murphy on the nutty professor and what norbitbit and The Nutty Professor. There's two Nutty Professors. And Coming to America. Coming to America where, and then in like Tropic Thunder, you've made a black guy white and a white guy black. Yeah. And a black guy an Asian. Yeah.

Yeah. It's stuff that, you know, you'd get in trouble for now. I don't know if you would. Do you think you would? I know people who have, you know, there's- Well, I guess that's true that people say like why wouldn't you just hire an asian guy but but the whole hook of those movies with eddie was that he's going to play everything i know i know it's you know that's the thing he's

an actor and actors become different characters sure and that's why you do makeup i think in the world that you're talking about it seems that people should be sort of encouraged to try to do these interesting and different things. I mean, to see Eddie Murphy play an old Jewish guy, which you made him into, right? Yeah. I mean, that was sort of stunning. Yeah, it was fun, too.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the thing that my relationship with Eddie and that film, you know, I mean, Eddie didn't know how he was going to play it, you know. I mean, he kind of did. I mean, he really wanted it to be very stereotypical Jewish guy. Yeah, right. Playing for laughs.

And when I did the makeup, he said, you know, I did a test. I demanded to test this makeup because it's pretty extreme change. Yeah. And very difficult makeup to do. And when I tested it, you know, he was sitting in the makeup chair looking at himself in the mirror and he just said, Rick, I just don't feel that I'm doing your makeup justice by doing this

stereotype. I mean, this looks so real. He goes, I want to, can I just have our friend come in and improvise something? And he goes, yeah, let me film this. So I got my video camera out, filming him in the mirror looking at himself. And they improvised a scene about this old Jewish guy who got

attacked by some black guys. But it was serious yeah and i went oh my god this guy's really good actor you know but then he ended up doing the stick yeah because it's much funnier you know and that makeup was very much based on my father-in-law nestor who wasn't jewish but he i i liked his face and he had kind of a big nose and you know landis said to me don't do it i don't want a big nose you know yeah you know eddie's got a wide nose and i have to counteract that with and the only way i can do that is kind of help build this out and it's like you know i have to build it a certain it's a certain size you know but yeah but it's uh you know it was a really fun makeup to do and it was fun just to see what Eddie did with it. And all the fat suits? Oh, yeah, fat suits.

Was that your technology? I mean, people had done suits before like that. I mean, I tried to make it a little more organic. What I did with the gorilla suits as well is a lot of times they make just hollow padding that you have a lot of room inside, but I tried to make it more like muscles, and I have bony parts, you know, like shoulder blades and things. Was it weighted? The Nutty Professor stuff was. The suit itself was very light, but we actually had, like, water balloons we'd put in. bony parts you know like shoulder blades and things you used to was it weighted uh the 90 professor stuff was the suit itself was very light but we actually had like water balloons we'd put

in uh-huh when it would show up you know when it was needed and when it didn't we'd take them out i forgot to tell you the thing that that destroyed my brain when i was younger was from live and let die oh yeah did you do that stuff i well helped a long way i i did uh i started out i was going to do yaffa koto's makeup um and they he didn't like me uh because i didn't agree with the thing he had some really ridiculous ideas i've always been very vocal if i don't agree with something yeah if it's my work you know right and he eventually said you know you don't know anything about black people uh i'm a black makeup artist and uh i lost that part of that job but i did do uh jeffrey holders there's a head where jeffrey gets his head shot right and he looks up yeah i made that head what about the exploding outfit koto i did the inflated head of him yeah so i got

kind of got my revenge and made him kind of a fat al-looking thing, you know. But it blows up. Yeah, you know, but it's funny how, and he was right. I mean, I didn't grow up in a neighborhood that had black people. Sure. I did know my mom, you know, because I was like a latchkey kid, you know. Yeah. Sometimes I had to go to the bank with her, and there was a janitor who was a black guy who became a friend, you know, and he kind of watched me, you but i i i didn't really know a lot but i i don't know a lot about aliens or

other things either i do the research and i figured out you know um so in in a way he was right but but also you know i did cicely tyson a few years later and won an me you know sure i did eddie murphy you know i learned yeah you know you know what did he what set him off exactly do you remember he well he wanted this disguise first of all i i i told him again i'm a kid yeah you know when i'm doing this but i said you meant this isn't he's miscast you know i said you cast him because he looks like the character that should be the makeup the makeup is it's a character called mr big who's supposed to be this gangster this big scary black guy what's your job it was the then the he was the makeup was supposed to be the guy named kananka i think it was who was

more like an african delegate kind of guy he was more sydney portier looking you know kind of guy and well first of all i didn't like that because i kind of said that to him you know yeah but he goes you know i want him to have red hair and I want him to have a head shaped like a bullet. And he was just naming off all this ridiculous stuff. Yeah. And I go, this is going to give this away as a makeup instantly if you have a pointed head with red hair. Yeah. You know, you're supposed to look natural and stuff like that.

And I mean, I argued with him. I've never been a yes man. Yeah. You know, if it's affecting my work and I don't agree with that i fight for it right and this case i uh you know and my fight turned out to me not getting that job yeah right yeah but uh but you moved on yeah it's like it's sort of astounding like american werewolf that was another one that was life-changing because griffin dunn slow decomposition was what you made the heads for yeah well it was appliances on him but yeah but except for the last stage which was a puppet yeah because he was supposed to be basically a talking skeleton right right right but that was

so disturbing when he's just sitting there the comedy of that and the horror of it what it was a that was a unique mix oh it was and it still holds up really well i gotta watch it again yeah and you know griffin was like when I did the makeup on the first test. Yeah. You know, he started, as he was putting his stuff on, he was just getting more and more upset looking and like sinking down in the chair. And it's like, obviously upset. And it's like, Griffin, what's the matter? And he goes, what's the matter?

Look at me, you know? And I go, yeah. And he goes, nobody's going to look at me, you know? And I go, did goes nobody's gonna look at me you know and he go did you read the script it's like yeah doesn't it say that your neck is torn out and half your face is off yeah and he goes but i didn't think it was gonna look like this and i go i did you know and so i called up blandus who was in location yeah and i go you got to talk to griffin you know griffin turned out to be great what do you think was gonna happen of course they're gonna look at him yeah yeah you know but uh you know and I think Griffin's probably known for that

part more than anything you know yeah and and he was terrific to work with you know but the first thing was a bit of a shock you know I bet yeah so what did you do on uh on the Star Wars the first Star Wars the cantina scene in the uh you know where they go in the cantina sure that's so memorable yeah all the different aliens yeah it originally was done in England by Stuart Freeborn, who did the Wookiee, and it was his film. Uh-huh. But George wanted to embellish on that scene and wasn't really crazy about some of the stuff that was in there. And, again, because of my friends I met at Cloakies, who were doing the visual effects. The stop-action guys?

Yeah, but they were, Dennis Muir and Ken Ralston were doing the visual effects of the spaceships guys? Yeah. But they were, Dennis Muir and Ken Ralston. Yeah. Were doing the visual effects, the spaceships and all that stuff. And George, they'd already finished. Nobody knew that Star Wars was going to be Star Wars. Right. And George said, I need some, I want to add some stuff. Do you know anybody that can make a mask? And it's like, yeah, we do.

You know? So they called me and this was at Valjean over there by the airport in Van Nuys. Yeah. And he showed me on a flatbed editor the scene as it was. And I just went, this is so cool. You know you know and he goes we don't have any money you know we don't have much time but i really want to like to add to this and it's like i'm there i'll do it add characters yeah and i said i have a bunch of masks i made for myself that we can use besides making specific things right so a great artist you just had a bunch of weird aliens on the shelves. Yeah, and things that were not even aliens.

Yeah. One devil mask. Right. Oh, I remember that guy. I kind of wondered why he was there. Yeah, I know. Well, you know, why not? You know, childhood's in.

There's a whole thing. There's like these devil, the aliens that look like devils. But I just remember that stood out. Like, that looks like just a devil guy. Yeah. And there's also a werewolf mask that I did that was a, I did as a mass production, a limited mass production mask. Yeah.

I thought these things were going to be just stuck in the background. George focused on them. Right. But all the aliens you see in the very beginning opening shot are mine. And then the band is mine. It was my design. But it was shot on a different continent by different people months later. And you would never know know the band is never really

there when harrison ford's there oh but because movies are magic and they're cuts you know you think you see the band and then you see harrison ford sitting there with grito and the band's playing and you think they're there yeah well that and that band became like this sort of modern it's like it was a true uh what would you call it it was iconic yeah and then people made fun of it for years oh no he did a richard pryor uh Yeah. And people made fun of it for years. Oh, yeah. He did a Richard Pryor special where they made fun of the Star Wars canteen. That's what he did. He worked on that.

You had to make Richard have no sex work and no cock. Yeah. Took you a while to get that out. Blank. Yeah. You had to make him blank. Yeah. Yeah.

That was fun. I remember that. I watched that special. Oh, did you? Yeah. What else did you do on that? Well, we supplied the aliens for the canteen. Oh, make them blank. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. I remember that. I watched that special. Oh, did you? What else did you do on that? Well, we supplied the aliens for the Cantina thing. Yeah, but yeah, that was, you know,

that whole thing was a comedy special and you started out on a close-up saying, you know, I thought I was going to have to give up a lot to do this show. That's right. And they start pulling back and then you see they just got no dick. He's got nothing.

Yeah, yeah. Now, Ed Wood you won an Oscar for. Now, I have to assume that there must have been something emotionally deep about having to kind of like, I'm just assuming that as a kid you loved Dracula. Oh, yeah. And Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff were my idols. Right. So, like, what did it feel like to be in that world?

It seemed very kind of human. Well, I, you know, I'm also an Ed Wood fan. Yeah. And when I heard that this was happening, you know, I'm also an Ed Wood fan. Yeah. And when I heard that this was happening, I contacted Tim. I met Tim when I did Thriller. There was one of the costume people, Kelly Kimball. You did the Michael Jackson video. Yes.

That was all you? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yep. And I'm in it as well. I'm one of the zombies in it too. Not dancing, but- Yeah. A non-dancing zombie. Yeah. Yeah, get yourself And I'm in it as well. I'm one of the zombies in it too. Not dancing, but...

Yeah, a non-dancing zombie. Yeah. Yeah, get yourself in there. My whole crew's in it. How are you feeling about the zombie apocalypse? Well, it's going to happen. Yeah. But I mean, like, this resurrection of zombies over the last decade,

is that something, when you look at that, could you anticipate that that would be the dominant monster? No, no. Because it's always been around. Yeah. And the thing is now, with Walking Dead, which I have to admit I don't really watch. I've tuned in a couple times to see some of the zombies. But they've pretty much explored every possibility that there is.

Yes. But I always enjoyed zombies. Yeah, so Ed's. But the Ed Wood thing. Yeah. Uh, but you know, I always enjoyed zombies, but the Ed Wood thing. Yeah. I mean, so when I heard that, you know, I had met Tim previously when he was just out, just out of, um, Cal Arts, uh, him and Rick Heinrichs and this costume lady on Thriller said, you have to meet these two kids are really talented.

Yeah. They were doing a Frankenweenie or something at Disney. So I went and met him and we talked about a number of projects, but they never happened. When I heard about Ed Wood, I go, I have to do this. So I called up Tim or wrote him or something. Yeah they never happened when I heard about Ed Wood I go I have to do this so I called up Tim or wrote him or something yeah I go I'll do this for free

if I have to which he pretty much took me up on but and then when I read the script I mean also I'm a Martin Landau fan yeah oh great

and when I read the script I thought the script was brilliant yeah and I just said you know I really have to do this movie and it really

to me you know Lugosi was to do this movie and it really to me you know legosi was so it had to be real yeah i didn't want him to be a rubber face and i i wanted to get the essence of bela but not pile a lot of rubber on them yeah and i think when i i wasn't as experienced of a makeup artist i might have put too much on them yeah Yeah. That happens a lot, I think, you know, and it's really choosing where to put it and what to put and what not to put.

Sure. And I really wanted him to be real and I think it worked out quite well. Yeah, it was definitely moving in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I think it's Tim's best movie and it's the least Tim Burton movie that he's made, but I think it's really a great movie. I think that might be,

I'd have to really weigh that. I just talked to DeVito about, you know, what was that, Batman Returns where he plays the penguin? The penguin, uh-huh. And I thought that was really a great moment. I think that might be, I'd have to really weigh that. I just talked to DeVito about, what was that, Batman Returns where he plays the penguin? And I thought that was kind of a genius thing. But it is, the spectacle of Tim Burton is very specific, whereas Ed Wood seemed to, he got out of the way a little bit.

Yeah. And you could see more of the heart of him in a way. Yeah, yeah. So was it great working with Landau and sort of, and sort of re kind of getting to know Bill up through that? Yeah. I mean, it was, it was really cool because, you know, he, uh, Martin Landau was also the makeup guy on, on, on Mission Impossible, you know, and he's in the outer limits, a

couple of outer limits episodes and stuff, you know, so I was just like a geek, you know, as being a geek fanboy. I try, I try not to be, you know, but, you know, you got to ask those a geek, you know, as being a geek fanboy. Oh, that's funny. I try not to be, you know, but, you know, eventually. Sometimes it happens. Oh, yeah. You know, you got to ask those questions eventually, you know. Sure. And you did, you work with Cronenberg too on that, on the Videodrome, which is a weird

ass movie. Oh, no, really weird. Something I started saying before, he's like, I used to have to try to convince people to let me do something. Yeah. American Werewolf came out. They thought we could do anything. Yeah.

And Cronenberg's movie was one of the ones right after American Werewolf yeah and it was like how the hell are we going to do this i mean and that's the thing i mean what makes me mad about contractors who are working on your house yeah they can never give you an accurate bid you know and time and money and stuff uh though i actually have a contractor that was really good you know but but um it's like the really good ones are always expensive yeah you know but you know, but, but, um, it's like, here, the really good ones are always expensive. Yeah. You know, but you know, here I have to do something that nobody's done before on a schedule that they're giving me and, and, you know, figure out a budget that I have to stick to.

Yeah. And I do it, you know, how come you can't put, you know, there's every 16 inches of a two by four. Yeah. How can you, how can we can't figure that out? You know, but there was some weird shit in video drawing. And I said to David, I said, I don't know how I'm going to do some of this.

I don't think some of it I can do. By putting the tape in his stomach or whatever? Yeah, that was easier than some of the other things. But I mean, he, I, but I said, you know, I, if I can't do it, I'll come up with an alternate version. Of the screen that pushed out? Yeah, we did all that stuff. Yeah.

And you have to figure out machinery. Yeah, and all kinds of crazy you know and you got a team of guys you usually work with and they were kids you know when i did american werewolf i mean now there's hundreds of makeup people that are good there weren't then that do this kind of stuff right american werewolf i hired fans who sent me fan mail i sent a kid out from texas brought him out who sent me fan mail. Another kid from Connecticut. The average age of people working for me were 18 on that movie. And they hadn't worked on a movie before. But they were total

nerds for it? Yeah, and I was 30, and I spent some time showing them how to do stuff, and we did stuff that still, I mean, however many years later this is, it was 1980 when we were doing it. It still holds up pretty well. Yeah. I gotta watch it again. I remember being profoundly disturbed by it. And when you do something like The Grinch,

where you got to honor the Seussian vision, I mean, that must have been like challenging because like there's an innocence to Seuss, you know, even in his most sinister characters. And now you're going to have full detail. You got to make these things real monsters in a way. Yeah. And try to be true to it. And then, you know, they're very simple drawings.

Yeah, I know. And there's things that you can't do, you know, the long neck and this thing. And then, I mean, I almost, and originally when I first got the call about that, envision what I thought The Grinch should be, but my first question is, what the hell are the who's? I mean, when you look at those things in the book, they're like these weird bug people or something, you know?

Right, right. And then I go, how are we going to do Cindy Lou Who? I mean, you're going to hire a kid? A kid can only work so many hours. Right. You can't do a three-hour makeup. Yeah. So, I mean, that part of it was a challenge

to come up with the right concept. And I still think the who's are scary. I mean, it's hard to do a strange-looking human and not have it be scary. Sure, yeah. But the Grinch, I mean, I had to fight to do the makeup that I did. They wanted, their attitude was,

we're painting Jim Carrey. We want to see his face. We want to see his face. And you paint him green. And it's like, no, it's wrong. It's going to ruin the movie, you know. Yeah. How the Grinch stole Christmas,

not how green Jim Carrey stole Christmas. And I did something which I talked about in the book, which was a secret in the book, which was a secret at the time, but I mean, they were not going to let me do this. I did a makeup on myself and showed it to them. They go, no, it's too much. I talked to, there was a website at the time called Ain't It Cool News.

They reviewed movies and had quite a following. And I knew the guy who ran it was a fan. And I said, listen, I want to save Universal from themselves. You know? Yeah. I said, I'm doing How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I did a makeup test on myself

that's what it should be. They want me to paint Jim Carrey green. Is there some way that you can tell a little fib and say that you saw that test and that Universal is making a big mistake? Yeah. He goes, I'm all over that.

Yeah, sure, you know? So they did, and there were like thousands of responses. So at the very last minute, Universal changed their mind and let me do the thing yeah you you did the leak and yeah and you know and ron you know ron and brian who i sent the tape to as well i go somehow this guy saw this tape i mean and and i said well you and brian are the only ones i sent it to you know and you know i had to keep my mouth shut at that point you know but now it's like i mean i frankly think i'd save the movie i think if it to, you know, and, you know, I had to keep my mouth shut at that point, you know, but now it's like, I mean, I frankly think I'd save the movie. I think if it was Jim

Carey. Yeah. Did it do all right, the movie? It did. And it's a, you know, a holiday classic. It shows up all the time. That's great. Good job. But then you do these other ones, you do the ring, you do all these like the horror movies. And I got to assume that, you know, Men in Black, just that's got to be just a free for all. Were you just make up weirdos? You know, Men in Black, that's got to be just a free-for-all. We just make up weirdos? You know, it was hard in that we didn't really know what Men in Black was when we were making the movie. Sure. And they said, which they say to me all the time, we want to see aliens like we've never seen before.

Sure. That was a lot easier before Star Wars. And, you know, after we did the Cantina scene, every movie had a Cantina scene, you know, with Space Movie with a bunch of different alien designs and stuff and i you know my approach was why don't we make aliens that look like ones we've seen but better and even say that it was like someone actually saw this and and did a you know a drawing right right you know but this is what it really looks like yeah no no we don't like that idea but i i happen to like retro aliens so So every time I did a Men in Black movie,

I did three of them, I pitched that idea. The last Men in Black, Men in Black 3, there's a time travel thing, you go back to the 60s. Yeah. So it made sense.

Right, right. So I finally got to make the retro aliens that I like. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, Men in Black didn't have, you know, it's a movie about aliens on Earth.

There wasn't very much in the script. Right, but it just seems to me that like, you know that there were some of them where you just went to town, where you just sort of like, why not just push the limit? Well, because I did, because I didn't accept. Will's introduction to aliens on Earth took place in the original script in a bar. And he's with Tommy Lee Jones, and Tommy says, aliens are everywhere. The bartender, Chucky, is an alien. And the script says, Chucky lifts his neck

and light comes out. And I go, I'm sorry, but this is a missed opportunity. This should be the coolest fucking thing you've ever seen. And we saw that in Cocoon, and it wasn't that exciting. So was that the one where you shot his head off? No, we did a thing. No, we had his face open up and have a little green man. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We came up with that idea. And they go, we love that idea. So we actually made a head for this bartender. We did the whole thing. Producers come in one day and they go, oh, we forgot to tell you we're not going to do that anymore. And I went, I thought you loved this idea.

And they go, oh, no, no, we do love it. We love it so much, we're going to put it in a different character and we're going to give him dialogue. And then, you know, the guys, I go, dialogue? And I go, his mouth is this big. His mouth is like an eighth of an inch, you know. Yeah, yeah.

So we had to make a big version of it. dialogue and i go his mouth is this big his mouth is like an eighth of an inch you know yeah so we had to make a big version of it that did the talking because it's so ridiculously rube girl rube goldberg kind of thing where it's just such a comedy play yeah you know but i mean i i mean i i'm sure a lot of producers and directors hate me because if i don't agree with them i fight or i'll suggest things, you know. Well, it's just weird because, you know, but it sounds like a lot of times eventually you win because like you're creating something spectacular that they couldn't envision at

all. So they're naturally nervous. But it seems like sometimes they're like, holy shit. And other times they're like, I don't know. But like, you know, you're giving them something they couldn't visualize and takes it to a whole other level. And I would imagine most of the time the fight is is right well i i think it is you know and and they they eventually come around you know i think a lot of it's like okay he's not going to shut up until we just let him do it you know yeah you know but um but yeah i think i've

because the ideas i've come up with and things like that i've made some of the movies i worked on better and what about uh have we leveled off on apes? I mean, I, you know, I mean, it was my, I liked fooling people with makeup when I was a kid and a little kid Frankenstein didn't fool anybody, you know, they would go, isn't that cute? Ricky looks like Frankenstein. It's like they're supposed to run in fear. So I went through a blood and guts phase where I made, when the first time I did a wound on myself, my mom freaked out. I made up all the kids in the neighborhood yeah wasn't allowed to play with them anymore you know did some did some things now as a parent i would have killed this kid if they would have done it to me you know um but i wanted to find something else that i could do and i thought an

ape is like a real life thing and it's kind of monstrous you know so i started doing research on ape suits that have been done before and real real gorillas and yeah's kind of monstrous you know so i started doing research on ape suits that have been done before and real real gorillas and yeah and found out it just became fascinated with the animal i mean hollywood did them in justice yeah and gorillas are very pacifistic and quite amazing you know but i thought this is something i can do so it was a quest from the time i was a kid to make a realistic ape suit. I made a number of them. When I finally did Gorillas in the Mist, I thought, okay, I'm done.

I did a gorilla that was intercut with a real animal and nobody knows. The whole movie is real gorilla, fake gorilla, real gorilla, fake gorilla. I said, you can't do that. You can't compare mine to a real one. Yeah. And they did and it worked. Right.

So I thought, okay, I can check that off. I made the ultimate gorilla suit. Then I got, I did Mighty Joe Young because it was like the other big ape movie that I loved as a kid. So you did King Kong twice and Mighty Joe Young. Yeah, and Planet of the Apes I had to do. Yeah.

And you kind of updated that too. Yeah. Well, I mean, I wanted, and again, when I talked to Tim about it, really wanted to do the film, but I said, I don't want I talked to Tim about it, really wanted to do the film, but I said, I don't want to do Tim Burton apes. You know, I don't want to do crazy stylized, you know,

white face with dark circles around the eyes, you know, swirly things on it. I want to do realistic apes. If you don't want that, then I don't want to do it. He goes, no, I do want real, you know, so. Yeah, I think you really reimagined the whole, and then they stuck with that with the other newer ape movies too, right?

Well, which they're all done CG, but I think they're done really well. Well, that's an interesting question. Do you feel like, you know, on some level, the craft that you spent your life doing

is being, you know, phased out? You know, if you would have asked me that 10 years ago, I would have said yes, for sure. I mean, definitely it took away the animatronic part of our work and a lot of the effects part of it. And clay.

Yeah. Well, yeah, we still do some clay stuff. But yeah. But it became the go-to solution for everything. You know, when I think there's a lot of things we could do better in real world. Ten years ago. Yeah. Right.

And it did look like it was dying out. Right. But now I think there's more makeups being done than ever. And I think some of the best makeups that have ever been done are being done now because there's so many there's so many markets now you know a lot of it's being done for tv you know for streaming and stuff so i mean a number of makeups are just mind-boggling now i mean never would imagine that this many makeups would be going on and this many good makeups would be going on so you're saying that the CGI thing is still limited

to big budget, you know, specific type of movie making? Well, I mean, people also have just decided, okay, this should be a makeup too. I mean, I don't know what the decision making is.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think one of the reasons, because for me, what really changed when I did American Werewolf and everybody said, what is the new material

that allowed you to do things that had never been done before? And I said, I was given adequate time and money. Yeah. Everybody said, what is the new material that allowed you to do things that had never been done before? And I said, I was given adequate time and money. Yeah. I've never gotten that before. When John asked me when I was 20

about what it would take, I was going to say, I said, it's going to take a lot more time and a lot more money than what I'm getting on Schlock. Right. You know.

Yeah. And, you know, it changed. I, when I did Gremlins 2, I mean, mind you, we made hundreds of Gremlins

and Mogwais and stuff. But I had a year on that film. I was on that film for a year. I love Gremlins. As opposed to two weeks on something else. So you can definitely do better work in a year. Did you have a lot of Gremlins at your house? I have a couple, yeah.

But my whole point of this was, for me, I needed the answer when a director isn't really ready to give an answer if i'm starting a year before the movie's being made the director's usually on another movie right and i go i need to know what this is gonna you know what side you're gonna see you know this and they don't want to make the decision they eventually give you some answer when it comes to the day it's like oh you know i've changed my mind i really want something else you know it's like uh but and it happens all the time, you know, but it's. And after you put a year into it, that's a little shitty.

Oh, well, you know, I mean, I think I've made more things that aren't on film than I have. Is that true?

Well, no, but there's a lot. For example, Men in Black, one of the big challenges on that, there was the Vincent D'Onofrio

makeup, you know, which is the human skin with the inside sucked out that's bugs wearing. Yeah, right, right. And I had a real problem with the logic, you know, which is the human skin with the inside sucked out that's bugs wearing. Yeah, right, right. And I had a real problem with the logic. You know, this bug's supposed to be 12 foot tall. Yeah.

And with this, again, like Barry Sonnenfeld, I'd call up Barry, the director, and go, how's a 12 foot bug fit in a six foot man? You know? Right. Well, he folds up and I go, well, you know, that doesn't work because his forearm is not going to, it's still going to be four feet long. Right. It doesn't matter. You know, and I kept calling, I'm trying to come up with logic for things. And the reality wasn't, didn't matter, but it was a design nightmare in that we had Steven Spielberg who wanted to be involved. We had Barry Sonnenfeld, we had Walter Parks. They all wanted to look at design. So we do designs. I'd send off copies of them all in

different places. They go, you know, I like the head on a4 and i like this body on c6 and the feet on three you know it's you know whatever why don't you do one like that and i would say because it would look stupid that's why and then they go okay let me rephrase that do one that looks like that you know right but the bug the big edgar bug which was one of the biggest things we made the design they chose i said doesn't looklike enough. It doesn't look to me like a bug. It looks more like a reptile. And Stephen said, who says space bugs should look like earth bugs? And I said, earth people, who are the ones that are going to be seeing this movie. It says bug, bug, bug, bug, bug. Right. an exoskeleton on it at least, you know. Anyways, cut to, you know, we're on the set at MGM with our giant mechanical bug all set up with all these puppeteers ready to go.

And the director comes up to him and goes, you know, we decided this doesn't look enough like a bug. So we're just going to do it all CG later. Oh my God. And this was where we put most of our effort and work, you know. I've done movies.

I did a movie called Isobar that we worked on for 10 months that was canceled. And what do you do with the monsters? Well, that got put in storage somewhere.

I have no idea where they are now, you know, but a lot of times you'll do things, you know, something that you think is the main thing

ends up being an incidental thing and something that's like an incidental thing becomes the main thing. And you have pictures at least. Yeah.

Yeah. So my question too in closing here is like, you know i'm sort of have a fascination with the todd browning's freaks and you have that bust of zippy in the book like which is like schlitzy actually oh yeah schlitzy yeah and it's a silicon and it looks like real yeah what what compelled you to i i love schlitzy you know i love freaks too yeah yeah you know uh i always felt like one of them you know yeah yeah um and i loved schlitzy i mean you know i do love protest things you know

i don't like gore you know i mean people always i'm squeamish i pass out when i see blood really yeah even fake blood no no if i do it it's okay i mean but if it's well done in a movie it affects me but that's interesting what you just said, that there's something about being a shy, maybe, you know, only child, the awkwardness that is inherent in that. Because I've thought about this myself. What makes me gravitate towards, you know, and find sort of empathy and be moved by human anomalies is that they, they function in the world proudly as, as people who are completely unusual. And there's something inspiring about that. Well,

again, I mean, I, you know, I say I love monster movies and stuff, but it's like Frankenstein, you know, hunchback,

you know, that Charles a lot in Quasimodo. Oh my God. It makes me cry when I watch it. Sure. Yeah. Brilliant performance and brilliant makeup. And,

but you know, as a kid, and especially an odd kid, you and but you know as a kid and especially an odd kid you know yeah you know you relate to them you know because you're like them you know and i think that's part of what attracted me feels so different and weird but you know it's funny i mean now you know and my wife sylvia is responsible a lot for me being uh i had no social skills yeah and i didn't like going anywhere. I still don't like going anywhere, you know, but she's brought a lot of things out in me that didn't exist before, you know. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't feel like a monster anymore.

Not so much. It's great talking to you, Rick. It's nice talking to you, Mark. Thanks for having me. talking to you, Mark. Thanks for having me. All right. Well, that was cool. I thought that was very interesting. The book, Rick Baker Metamorphosis, is available wherever you get books tomorrow, October 22nd. You can pre-order it now if you want. It's two volumes, 736 pages long. It has more than 1,600 images from Rick's career. And don't forget about the Adult Swim podcast. If you like Rick and Morty, Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen, Hunger Force, Too Many Cooks, Tim and Eric, or any of the Adult Swim shows, then the Adult Swim podcast is for you. Go behind the scenes with the creators, cast, and crew of the Adult Swim shows you love. Listen and subscribe to the Adult Swim podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts

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