The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1377

00:00:00.000 Here we go in three, two, one.

00:00:03.000 Rick Baker, ladies and gentlemen.

00:00:04.000 How are you, sir?

00:00:05.000 Hey, I'm great, Joe.

00:00:06.000 Everybody's been saying on my Instagram I should do this podcast for ages.

00:00:10.000 Well, I'm glad they listened, or you listened, rather.

00:00:12.000 I've been a fan of yours forever, man.

00:00:13.000 I was a huge Star Wars fan when I was a kid, and you inspired me.

00:00:17.000 When I was young, I really wanted to be a makeup artist.

00:00:20.000 I wanted to do special effects and the kind of stuff that you do.

00:00:23.000 I had no idea.

00:00:24.000 Yeah, man.

00:00:25.000 I think it was probably Star Wars that kicked it off for me because I, like many kids, a lot of people today were so removed with first VHS and then DVDs and Laserdiscs and now streaming.

00:00:38.000 It's so easy to watch movies, but when Star Wars came out...

00:00:41.000 We would go see it over and over and over again.

00:00:43.000 It was like a little contest between a lot of the kids that I went to school with.

00:00:47.000 I think I saw it 13 times while it was out in the movie theater.

00:00:51.000 But I became fascinated.

00:00:53.000 I've always been fascinated with comic books.

00:00:55.000 I always wanted to be a comic book illustrator.

00:00:57.000 I always loved those films.

00:01:02.000 Fantasy novels like Creepy and Eerie, you know, those graphic novels.

00:01:07.000 But I really became fascinated with special effects and particularly makeup after your work.

00:01:14.000 Well, you know, it's kind of the same thing for me.

00:01:16.000 I mean, you know, I grew up in – I was born in 1950. You know, I grew up in front of a TV, but it was a little black and white one, you know, and – There was always the monster movies on Saturdays or Sundays, and that stuff just hit a chord with me, and I just said, I have to do this.

00:01:32.000 What was the first thing that you did?

00:01:35.000 First ever makeup kind of thing I did?

00:01:37.000 Well, I mean, I'm an only child.

00:01:40.000 My mom wasn't supposed to have kids because she had a bad heart and stuff, but they wanted children.

00:01:46.000 But I was very shy.

00:01:48.000 I stayed in my bedroom.

00:01:49.000 I couldn't talk to an adult and stuff like that.

00:01:52.000 The very first thing, I got interested in makeup and I got some just white grease paint and black grease paint and smeared it on my face.

00:01:59.000 And Just with a layer of grease paint on my face, when I was looking in the mirror, it wasn't little Ricky Baker anymore.

00:02:05.000 And I could do things that I couldn't do without this shit smeared on my face.

00:02:11.000 And it just, it helped me overcome my shyness.

00:02:14.000 But I mean, it started with that.

00:02:16.000 But I mean, I wanted to do something more, you know.

00:02:19.000 So I ended up making, I made my first mask, I think, when I was 13. And it was Curse of Frankenstein, Frankenstein.

00:02:29.000 And I did that one mainly because I thought I could copy that one and make it look close enough because there's some crudeness to that makeup.

00:02:37.000 I actually at first didn't like it, but I like it now.

00:02:40.000 When you find out how the film industry works and poor Philip Leakey who did that makeup had like a week to prep and no money.

00:02:48.000 So I forgive some of the faults with it.

00:02:51.000 Well, it's great.

00:02:52.000 When you stop and think about the earliest versions of makeup in movies, like special effects style makeup in movies, you know, you go back to like Nosferatu is probably one of the very earliest, right?

00:03:03.000 I mean, they really didn't have anything to go with.

00:03:06.000 There wasn't anything to copy.

00:03:08.000 They kind of had to make it up.

00:03:09.000 Yeah.

00:03:10.000 And I mean, you know, the thing is that Nosferatu is such a, I mean, it's a great film.

00:03:14.000 It's a great film, still to this day.

00:03:16.000 Yeah, and the look, you know, I mean, it shouldn't work.

00:03:20.000 It's like a big hook nose, you know, but it works great.

00:03:25.000 But yeah, same thing.

00:03:27.000 I mean, Lon Chaney had nothing to work with, you know, spirit gum and cotton, and he did...

00:03:33.000 To this day, some of the – still my favorite makeups and some of the best makeups.

00:03:36.000 And I think the limitations in a lot of ways made the makeups work better.

00:03:42.000 I mean now we can add so much stuff and I find that happens so much now like with that face-off show and stuff.

00:03:49.000 It's more like about how much can you pile on someone's face.

00:03:52.000 But sometimes the most effective makeups are just the teeniest little bit of things that you do and let a lot of the humanity show through.

00:04:00.000 Like Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera?

00:04:04.000 Great makeup.

00:04:05.000 Yeah.

00:04:05.000 That's terrific.

00:04:06.000 And Chaney was just brilliant anyway.

00:04:08.000 He's great at making scary faces.

00:04:09.000 That's how I learned to make scary faces, watching Chaney movies.

00:04:13.000 Yeah, and he's another one.

00:04:14.000 There was not much for him to go on.

00:04:17.000 He was kind of like a pioneer, for sure.

00:04:20.000 I mean, again, like I said, still some of my favorite makeups.

00:04:23.000 That and Jack Pierce's Frankenstein's Monster.

00:04:26.000 Yes.

00:04:27.000 Again, crude materials, you know.

00:04:29.000 And, you know, poor Boris Karloff, what he had to endure.

00:04:34.000 I mean, none of the makeups he did on Boris were comfortable, you know, with cotton and spirit gum and collodion.

00:04:42.000 I don't know if you know.

00:04:43.000 You might know what collodion is because of your fight background kind of stuff.

00:04:46.000 But it's a plastic.

00:04:47.000 They used to use it to close up...

00:04:52.000 It's like kind of this liquid plastic, but it smells horrible.

00:04:55.000 And, you know, to be working around someone's eyes with this fumes of stuff.

00:04:59.000 I mean, he had to put up with a lot.

00:05:01.000 So it's kind of like a glue?

00:05:03.000 Yeah, it's kind of a liquidy, plastic-y stuff.

00:05:05.000 Can you pull up a video of Nosferatu?

00:05:07.000 What year was that?

00:05:09.000 20...

00:05:10.000 I don't know what.

00:05:11.000 1922?

00:05:11.000 That's crazy.

00:05:13.000 Yeah.

00:05:13.000 You stop and think about that, you know, film itself had only been, how old then?

00:05:18.000 Yeah, not very.

00:05:19.000 Not very.

00:05:20.000 You know, but yeah.

00:05:20.000 See if you can get a video of it.

00:05:22.000 Yeah.

00:05:23.000 His, just the whole thing about the way he moved, like everything, it was so creepy and interesting.

00:05:29.000 Well, and the whole film, I mean, just beautifully shot.

00:05:31.000 I mean, so many of the silent films, I mean, the photography is so incredible, you know.

00:05:35.000 I mean, I wonder what they did with the fingers.

00:05:38.000 Like, how did they get his fingers?

00:05:39.000 Well, I think those are just his hands at this point.

00:05:42.000 You know, I mean, later, I mean, in like the John Barrymore, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you know, I remember reading Famous Monsters, which was, again, like my Bible, you know.

00:05:53.000 Did you get Famous Monsters at all?

00:05:55.000 Yes.

00:05:55.000 Yeah, I did.

00:05:56.000 Oh, yeah, you said Creepy and Eerie and all that.

00:05:57.000 Sure.

00:05:58.000 You know, they said, you know, John Barrymore did the whole transformation without makeup, you know, and it's not true.

00:06:04.000 He's got finger extensions on.

00:06:06.000 He's got like a pointed back of a head, you know, and stuff.

00:06:10.000 But yeah, it's Nasratu.

00:06:13.000 Brilliant.

00:06:14.000 So what do they do for his ears?

00:06:15.000 Do you know?

00:06:16.000 Well, I'm not sure what they're made out of.

00:06:18.000 Same with the bald head.

00:06:19.000 I mean, I know rubber existed then.

00:06:22.000 I mean, you can kind of see.

00:06:23.000 I mean, he's got – I think it's probably just like a slip rubber, which is like what Halloween masks are made out of, ears and bald head and nose.

00:06:31.000 Yeah.

00:06:31.000 Yeah, some sort of prosthetic nose, right?

00:06:33.000 Yeah, and those big pointy teeth.

00:06:35.000 But again, I mean, if you really kind of analyze it and look at it, you think, this is stupid.

00:06:40.000 It'll never work, you know?

00:06:41.000 But it works great.

00:06:42.000 And I also think it's because Max Schreck was great, you know?

00:06:45.000 Yeah.

00:06:45.000 He does some really cool things with his hands and stuff, you know?

00:06:47.000 Well, if you didn't, if nothing like this existed and it was dark out and you saw a guy like that in your house, you would freak out.

00:06:53.000 I mean, that's terrifying looking.

00:06:54.000 I'd freak out just if I saw somebody in my house anyway.

00:06:57.000 Yeah, someone smiling would freak out.

00:07:00.000 Yeah, it's such an interesting time capsule when you look at these films, when you look at something like Nosferatu from 1922, and then you look at what we're doing today with CGI, in a lot of ways...

00:07:13.000 I mean, I'm not a fan of CGI. I'm not a fan of it in terms of, like, for monsters.

00:07:19.000 It just seems, everything seems fake.

00:07:21.000 The suspension of disbelief is higher than if I'm, like, what you did with American Werewolf in London, one of the more brilliant things about it was the special effects and the makeup were fantastic, but there were these really quick scenes.

00:07:35.000 It was like you saw it for a second and it was burned into your eyes.

00:07:39.000 And then it vanished.

00:07:40.000 Yeah, well, what John Landis said to me is that I'm never going to really show the werewolf for more than a couple seconds.

00:07:46.000 And I hardly even want to show it then, you know.

00:07:49.000 Right.

00:07:49.000 And what was great about Werewolf, working on that film with John Landis, was he...

00:07:54.000 You know, said, you're the expert.

00:07:56.000 I want a four-legged hound from hell.

00:07:57.000 I wanted to make a biped werewolf.

00:07:59.000 You know, we argued about it.

00:08:00.000 And it was basically, you know, he wins.

00:08:01.000 He's the director, you know.

00:08:02.000 But he says, four-legged hound from hell, make it.

00:08:04.000 And I did.

00:08:05.000 I mean, the first sculpture was what the final thing became.

00:08:09.000 Same with everything in it, the Nazi demons, all that stuff.

00:08:12.000 You know, cut to, you know, like when I did the Wolfman.

00:08:14.000 I mean, it did.

00:08:15.000 There's thousands of designs and all these producers are going, well, maybe if you do one between this and that and do one between this and that, or maybe this poor should be over here.

00:08:25.000 And that kind of stuff just is so soul-sucking.

00:08:28.000 And it's one of the reasons I retired.

00:08:30.000 But to this day, I mean like on the cover of my book is the sculpture of one of the Nazi demons from American Werewolf.

00:08:39.000 And a number of people said this is like one of the greatest designs ever, you know, and this kind of stuff.

00:08:44.000 And it's people who are production designers and stuff.

00:08:47.000 And it's pure Rick Baker without interference.

00:08:52.000 And that's what I thought the industry would be.

00:08:55.000 Right.

00:08:56.000 Which it isn't, for the most part.

00:08:58.000 Well, it's just everybody wants to...

00:08:59.000 It's the same with comedy.

00:09:01.000 It seems like it's the same with everything.

00:09:02.000 Everybody wants to put their greasy little fingerprints on it and say, the reason why his nose is like that was me.

00:09:08.000 I told Rick Baker, you don't know what you're doing.

00:09:10.000 You've got to make the nose wider.

00:09:11.000 Yeah, no, I know.

00:09:13.000 And it's watered down the design.

00:09:17.000 Like I said, it's soul-sucking.

00:09:19.000 Sculptures take a long time.

00:09:21.000 We sculpt every pore and every wrinkle and everything.

00:09:23.000 I have magnifying glasses I wear when I'm doing this.

00:09:26.000 And after you spend hours and sleepless nights doing it, and then some guy who doesn't know what he's talking about comes in and says, well, why don't you do this?

00:09:34.000 Well, they're disturbing your artistic vision.

00:09:37.000 I mean, when someone contributes money, and they're the ones who get to decide whether things get made or not made, they think they're artistic as well.

00:09:46.000 It becomes a disaster.

00:09:48.000 And it's the thing, you know, I mean, when you see a movie or a TV show, there's 47 producers.

00:09:52.000 You know, it used to be they were show people.

00:09:55.000 And there was a guy, you know, for example, on Gremlins 2, Mike Fennell, who was the producer, who came from Roger Corman School of Filmmaking, you know, so he really checks every penny.

00:10:07.000 Mm-hmm.

00:10:08.000 But he was a guy I could go to and he would look at everything and go, why are you buying this?

00:10:14.000 And you'd explain it to him and he'd go, okay, that makes sense.

00:10:18.000 And there'd be a person you could talk to and you could get an answer from.

00:10:22.000 Now there's, like I said, 47 producers and nobody will commit to anything.

00:10:27.000 It drove me crazy.

00:10:30.000 I did make it because I loved it and I feel so fortunate that My hobby became my profession and I did well and got awards for it and stuff for something I would do for free.

00:10:42.000 But it got to the point where I was just becoming a bitter old man because of all this.

00:10:48.000 I have to retire and I want to make things for myself while I still can.

00:10:53.000 I'm almost 69 years old and having trouble with joints and vision and all kinds of stuff.

00:11:00.000 I'd be pissed off if I was working on some movie for some producer that Didn't know what he was talking about and screwed up my work.

00:11:08.000 Right.

00:11:09.000 Messed with your head.

00:11:10.000 Yeah.

00:11:10.000 So it's time to just make my own thing.

00:11:12.000 And I'm loving it.

00:11:13.000 What kind of stuff are you doing now?

00:11:15.000 I do all kinds of stuff.

00:11:16.000 I mean, I still do makeups for fun.

00:11:20.000 I've actually cast up some of my...

00:11:21.000 I saved a lot of the molds.

00:11:23.000 I cast up some of the old Star Wars stuff out of molds and stuff.

00:11:27.000 I do animations.

00:11:28.000 I make models.

00:11:31.000 I make little movies.

00:11:33.000 I... But you're just doing it purely for the joy of it now.

00:11:35.000 Painting and sculpting.

00:11:36.000 It's just like it was when I was a kid.

00:11:37.000 Oh, that's awesome.

00:11:38.000 My bedroom was my workshop.

00:11:43.000 And I'm surprised I'm still alive.

00:11:45.000 I had a bunch of toxic chemicals in the same room that I slept.

00:11:51.000 But what I've done since I was a kid is how I have fun.

00:11:55.000 It's how I entertain myself.

00:11:57.000 And like I said on my Instagram, everybody's going, I thought you retired.

00:12:00.000 And I said, I retired from the film industry.

00:12:03.000 I didn't retire from being a creative guy.

00:12:06.000 I mean, this is who I am.

00:12:07.000 This is what I do.

00:12:08.000 It's how I have fun.

00:12:09.000 That's awesome.

00:12:10.000 You know, as much as the process was probably annoying with the Wolfman, the end result was cool.

00:12:15.000 I really loved how you did it and you made it old school.

00:12:17.000 It was kind of like, almost like the original Wolfman, but like, you know, redone.

00:12:22.000 Yeah, well, I was, you know, I'm a fan, you know, and I think...

00:12:26.000 I think that too.

00:12:27.000 I mean, people who love what they're doing and come up from a fanboy point of view, you know, and it's something I think the producers don't understand because they're all about making as much money as they can and they think everybody's trying to cheat them out of money and stuff, you know?

00:12:42.000 There's so many times I would say, you know, why did you hire me?

00:12:45.000 You know, if you don't, you're not letting me do what I do.

00:12:47.000 And it's like, well, you're the best.

00:12:49.000 I go, well, let me do what I do.

00:12:51.000 Let me be the best.

00:12:51.000 Have some faith.

00:12:52.000 You know, I mean, you're making it so I can't.

00:12:54.000 And The Wolfman was a case like that.

00:12:55.000 I mean, it was a battle through the whole thing.

00:12:58.000 And that was one of these things with thousands of designs and changed this one little thing.

00:13:02.000 But I thought that, you know, in the end...

00:13:04.000 The original director left right before we started filming.

00:13:06.000 They brought somebody else in and I just said, we don't have an approved design.

00:13:10.000 I'm making what I thought I should make seven months ago.

00:13:13.000 I did a test on myself that basically looked like that.

00:13:16.000 We don't have time to screw around.

00:13:18.000 The new director isn't going to have a choice, which I don't think he was really happy about.

00:13:22.000 But in the end, I mean, I thought the movie was the closest thing to an old school horror movie in a long time.

00:13:27.000 It was, but it also had the feel like a lot of people fucked with it.

00:13:30.000 It felt like it was missing an individual or singular vision.

00:13:34.000 Well, it's every movie now.

00:13:35.000 Yes.

00:13:36.000 God, that's so frustrating to hear.

00:13:38.000 Well, I think Tarantino still pulls it off.

00:13:40.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:13:41.000 He's one of the rare guys that still...

00:13:43.000 You watch a movie and go, Jesus Christ.

00:13:45.000 The shit that he gets away with, that's a Tarantino movie.

00:13:48.000 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, that is a Tarantino movie.

00:13:52.000 If I saw that movie and you said, who made that movie?

00:13:55.000 I'd be, fucking Tarantino made that movie.

00:13:57.000 If they didn't, they're going to jail.

00:14:01.000 He gets away with so much and his movies seem like his movies.

00:14:05.000 And he's a fanboy.

00:14:07.000 He knows movies really well.

00:14:09.000 Thank God for him.

00:14:11.000 I really enjoy his films.

00:14:12.000 I met Quentin.

00:14:14.000 I was at a film festival in Sieges, Spain.

00:14:16.000 It's a science fiction fantasy film festival.

00:14:19.000 I was a guest.

00:14:21.000 I was there.

00:14:22.000 That's where I met Peter Jackson.

00:14:24.000 He sat next to me at a screening and we became friends.

00:14:28.000 And he had his movie, Brain Dead.

00:14:30.000 Have you ever seen that?

00:14:31.000 No.

00:14:32.000 Oh, it's really good.

00:14:33.000 It's really fun.

00:14:33.000 It's really gory, but funny gory and really clever.

00:14:38.000 But anyways...

00:14:39.000 When did he make that?

00:14:40.000 Well, this was like in the 90s or something, I guess.

00:14:43.000 I'm real bad with dates.

00:14:44.000 But anyways, we were sitting and talking and Freddie Francis, who was a director and a director of photography, did a lot of Hammer movies.

00:14:52.000 And Stuart Freeborn was there and we're sitting in this thing and there was this big kind of goofy kid walking around.

00:14:56.000 And I thought he was just like a fan.

00:14:59.000 So I said, come on over and sit down with us.

00:15:00.000 And we started talking and go, what are you doing here?

00:15:02.000 And he was obviously like an American.

00:15:05.000 And he goes, I have a film here.

00:15:06.000 And it was Reservoir Dogs.

00:15:09.000 And we went to see it and I actually left in the scene where they're torturing the cop.

00:15:15.000 It's funny, people think I like gory stuff, you know, because I've done it in films, but real stuff.

00:15:22.000 And if it's really intensely done on a film like that was, I mean, I thought he was going to let this guy light this guy on fire.

00:15:29.000 He's got the cop in a chair at one point and I said, I can't, I don't want to see this.

00:15:33.000 So I left and so did Wes Craven.

00:15:36.000 And he got so jazzed by that.

00:15:42.000 Wes Craven couldn't take my movie and Rick Baker couldn't take my movie.

00:15:46.000 It's so cool.

00:15:49.000 That's awesome.

00:15:51.000 And that was a great thing.

00:15:52.000 I mean, like I said, this was my introduction to Peter Jackson and we became fast friends.

00:15:57.000 We kind of had...

00:15:59.000 The same background.

00:16:00.000 It's like what you said to me about wanting to be a makeup artist and reading those things.

00:16:04.000 I know so many people like that.

00:16:06.000 You know, Danny Elfman said that to me.

00:16:09.000 Oh, really?

00:16:09.000 Yeah.

00:16:10.000 John Fogarty likes that.

00:16:11.000 John Fogarty?

00:16:12.000 Yeah.

00:16:12.000 Oh, wow.

00:16:13.000 I don't know if they wanted to be a makeup artist, but he really liked that stuff, you know.

00:16:17.000 Oh, yeah.

00:16:17.000 Slash, you know, a lot of these different people, you know, and they went into rock and roll instead of that, you know.

00:16:22.000 Yeah.

00:16:23.000 But, you know, I never veered off that path.

00:16:26.000 I mean, from age 10, this is what I wanted to do.

00:16:30.000 And I didn't have a plan B. And fortunately, it worked because I grew up very lower middle class.

00:16:36.000 I didn't know anybody in the film industry, you know.

00:16:39.000 When I finally met somebody, I was 13, and Universal Studios just started their tour.

00:16:47.000 And I talked to my parents.

00:16:49.000 They said, you know, you're going to be a teenager.

00:16:51.000 It's a special birthday.

00:16:52.000 You know, what can we do?

00:16:53.000 And I said, can we go to Universal on the Universal tour?

00:16:57.000 And in my head, I was going to hop off the tram and run into the makeup department, and they were going to hire me.

00:17:02.000 Yeah.

00:17:04.000 But on the way, I knew that – are you familiar with Don Post's masks?

00:17:09.000 The Don Post Studios, they did the Universal Classic Monster masks.

00:17:12.000 They were in the back of Famous Monsters and stuff.

00:17:15.000 But they did these really high-quality masks that were like $35 in the 60s, which was way beyond anything I could ever afford.

00:17:22.000 But everybody, every kid, monster kid coveted those masks, you know.

00:17:26.000 He, uh, his studio was in Burbank near Universal and I had seen him on TV talking about how he was buying Universal.

00:17:33.000 So when we got close, I asked my dad if he could maybe look in the phone book and maybe call up Don Post and we could go visit.

00:17:40.000 And they were very gracious.

00:17:43.000 You know, my dad said, you know, my son Ricky likes monsters and makes masks and we're in close by.

00:17:48.000 Can you come by?

00:17:49.000 And they said, sure.

00:17:50.000 You know, gave me the whole tour.

00:17:51.000 Wow.

00:17:52.000 Yeah.

00:17:52.000 And on the wall in Don Poe Studios was a picture of Bob Burns who I'd read about in my monster magazines.

00:18:00.000 He's a collector and he's done some makeup.

00:18:02.000 He had a mummy suit and a gorilla suit that he made and had his phone number.

00:18:07.000 And I wrote it down.

00:18:09.000 And again, I was still pretty shy and I got my dad to call this guy who I read about in monster magazines.

00:18:16.000 And he was the first guy I ever met anywhere related to the industry.

00:18:21.000 And again, Bob and Kathy welcomed me into their home.

00:18:25.000 He showed me how to do a scar, a cut out of martycian's wax and where to get the stuff at Max Factor.

00:18:33.000 And he just was like one of the first people to show me stuff.

00:18:36.000 And he worked at the local CBS station.

00:18:40.000 He introduced me to the guy who did the makeup artist who made up the newscasters.

00:18:47.000 And he was like blown away by the stuff that I did.

00:18:49.000 He goes, I'm going to take you to the makeup union.

00:18:51.000 And I was like 15 at this point.

00:18:53.000 And so I went to the makeup union with a box full of heads and masks and pictures of makeups I did.

00:19:00.000 Again, naive, thinking that they were going to say, start tomorrow, get a job.

00:19:05.000 And the business rep of the union said, you know, give up, kid.

00:19:07.000 You're never going to get in.

00:19:10.000 You know, you have to be born into the industry.

00:19:12.000 It was a real – at that time, there was a lot of nepotism.

00:19:16.000 I mean, there's still – That bad?

00:19:17.000 Yeah.

00:19:18.000 Yeah.

00:19:18.000 But he says, you know, if you were a Westmore, you know, you would get a union card with your birth certificate, you know, but nobody knows, you don't know anybody.

00:19:27.000 He said, first of all, you have to be 21 to serve an apprenticeship.

00:19:31.000 I was 15. He said, there's only a few apprenticeships and they're going to go to a Westmore or to a Bauer, you know, somebody who was a name makeup artist or a relative of one of those.

00:19:43.000 And he also said the kind of makeups that I wanted to do, which were monsters and weird stuff, He said, those jobs are few and far between, and most of the time you're going to be mopping sweat off of some bitchy actress.

00:19:54.000 And it was kind of like...

00:19:56.000 Trying to crush your dreams.

00:19:57.000 Well, he kind of did, but it also was like, you know what?

00:20:00.000 Fuck you.

00:20:01.000 I'm going to show you.

00:20:02.000 And I did.

00:20:04.000 You definitely did.

00:20:06.000 I mean, boy, was he wrong.

00:20:07.000 He turned out to be the greatest of all time.

00:20:09.000 Well, I don't know about that.

00:20:10.000 I think Dick Smith is the greatest of all time.

00:20:12.000 Well, you have to think that.

00:20:13.000 Yeah.

00:20:15.000 I can't believe you didn't get the book.

00:20:17.000 I'm sorry.

00:20:18.000 I'm going to make sure you get it.

00:20:19.000 Well, there's a picture of me.

00:20:20.000 Wow.

00:20:21.000 That was from a newspaper article in my local newspaper when I think I was a sophomore in high school.

00:20:28.000 And that was the first time they called me Rick Baker Monster Maker.

00:20:32.000 Yeah.

00:20:33.000 Yeah, that was...

00:20:34.000 That's from high school?

00:20:35.000 That was, yeah, I think I was the third...

00:20:37.000 No, I must have been like 14 or 15 or 16, something like that.

00:20:41.000 Wow, man, you were committed to the path.

00:20:43.000 Oh, I mean, my bedroom had...

00:20:44.000 It was all masks and, you know, did you ever do the Aurora model kits?

00:20:48.000 Yes, you did, yeah.

00:20:50.000 I mean, that was one of the big regrets that when I got married, I thought, well, I got to...

00:20:57.000 Grow up.

00:20:58.000 Yeah.

00:20:58.000 Get rid of the models.

00:20:59.000 I got rid of the models, and I've regretted it ever since.

00:21:03.000 Those were so cool.

00:21:03.000 You could paint them.

00:21:05.000 I remember those.

00:21:06.000 I think I had a Creature from the Black Lagoon one.

00:21:09.000 Did they make a Creature from the Black Lagoon one?

00:21:10.000 Oh, yeah, they did.

00:21:11.000 Yeah.

00:21:11.000 That was an interesting film, right?

00:21:13.000 Because that was a unique turn on makeup, where they took this guy and they kind of put him in sort of like a scuba suit slash reptilian thing.

00:21:21.000 That was one of the cooler makeup ones.

00:21:25.000 It still is.

00:21:26.000 It's still one of the best men in a suit.

00:21:28.000 Really well done.

00:21:29.000 Pull that up, Jamie.

00:21:30.000 Creature from the Black Lagoon.

00:21:31.000 That was like, what was it, 50s?

00:21:33.000 Yeah.

00:21:34.000 And that was the Westmore regime.

00:21:38.000 Jack Pierce, who did Frankenstein, the Wolfman, all the classic stuff.

00:21:41.000 Was used old school techniques during a time when other people were doing foam rubber.

00:21:46.000 And a new regime came in Universal and all of a sudden Jack got a pink slip.

00:21:51.000 You know, you're out.

00:21:52.000 You know, these movies.

00:21:53.000 There it is.

00:21:53.000 Yeah.

00:21:54.000 Very cool.

00:21:54.000 Yeah.

00:21:55.000 Go with the larger one in the lower left corner, Jamie, where you see the whole body.

00:21:58.000 Yeah.

00:21:59.000 I mean, what a cool design.

00:22:01.000 It is.

00:22:01.000 And it was designed by a woman.

00:22:03.000 Yeah.

00:22:03.000 Millicent Patrick, who...

00:22:05.000 She nailed it.

00:22:06.000 She did, but she didn't get a lot of...

00:22:08.000 I mean, Bud Westmore's regime got the credit for it.

00:22:11.000 But when the movie came out, when some...

00:22:13.000 Look at that.

00:22:13.000 Yeah.

00:22:14.000 When some publicist found out that a woman designed it, it was...

00:22:17.000 They did a whole kind of Beauty and the Beast campaign.

00:22:20.000 And apparently Bud Westmore was furious.

00:22:22.000 You know, he goes, it's my work.

00:22:24.000 And he was famous for posing with other people's stuff.

00:22:29.000 You know, I mean...

00:22:30.000 A very fine sculptor named Chris Mueller sculpted the creature's head anyways, and I think he did the abdomen and some of the parts.

00:22:36.000 And he also sculpted the Metalonian mutant from this island of Earth, you know, the big brown kind of thing.

00:22:42.000 Oh, okay, yeah.

00:22:42.000 And there's some pictures of Bud Westmore holding a really inappropriate sculpture tool next to the sculptures.

00:22:49.000 Oh, no.

00:22:49.000 And from what I heard, he would, whenever the publicist would come to take pictures, he would give everybody a day off or the afternoon off, and then he would go up to the lab and pose with us.

00:22:58.000 Oh, Christ.

00:22:59.000 I hate hearing stories like that.

00:23:01.000 It's so disappointing.

00:23:03.000 You want to think that all these people who take credit for all that work, they did the work.

00:23:08.000 Yeah, and I tried to do that, and it's funny because so many people...

00:23:11.000 I mean, I never wanted to be a businessman, and I never even thought about that aspect of it, that I'd have to have employees and all that.

00:23:19.000 Me neither.

00:23:20.000 And I hated that part.

00:23:21.000 I mean, that was something I didn't care for, and I resisted...

00:23:27.000 Being a businessman.

00:23:29.000 I wasn't listed anywhere.

00:23:30.000 My company wasn't listed.

00:23:31.000 I didn't have a letterhead.

00:23:33.000 I didn't have business cards.

00:23:34.000 I didn't have an agent.

00:23:37.000 How the hell I ever was successful, I don't know, other than that fact that I worked hard and my work was pretty good.

00:23:45.000 Fortunately, it all worked out for me, like I said.

00:23:47.000 It certainly did.

00:23:48.000 What was your first gig?

00:23:49.000 What was the first professional gig that you got where it was like, holy shit, I'm getting paid to do makeup?

00:23:56.000 Well, I mean, the first time I ever got paid, actually, I think I did a makeup for a stage actor who wanted to be old.

00:24:05.000 And I charged him $75, which was more money than I ever gotten from anything before.

00:24:14.000 You just came up with a number in your head?

00:24:16.000 Yeah, well, I kind of somehow figured it out.

00:24:18.000 Yeah.

00:24:20.000 Anyways, I did these pieces for him, and he lived off that Pasadena Freeway, that one that has the weird right-angled off-ramps, you know.

00:24:31.000 And my dad drove me there because I couldn't, and I didn't drive at the time.

00:24:34.000 And he actually had a makeup kit and had some hair pieces in it and a bunch of stuff.

00:24:40.000 And he said, you know, I will trade you this.

00:24:43.000 Instead of giving you $75, I'll give you this makeup case full of this stuff.

00:24:47.000 And I was like...

00:24:49.000 Yeah, that's really cool.

00:24:51.000 But my dad wanted to teach me responsibilities and stuff.

00:24:55.000 And this was around the time I think I was like 16 and was going to try to drive.

00:25:00.000 And he goes, my insurance is going to go up.

00:25:03.000 And what you have to do is you have to get that money and you have to give me the money for the rate of the insurance that's going up.

00:25:11.000 It's like, oh man, I really want this makeup kit.

00:25:14.000 But I mean, I had amazing parents who, I mean, I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for them.

00:25:18.000 I mean, they supported me in my crazy decision to make monsters for a living.

00:25:24.000 Well, they must have been so happy when it paid off, though.

00:25:27.000 Yeah, I was glad that they lived long enough to see that.

00:25:29.000 And I got to bring my parents to the Oscars a few times.

00:25:31.000 Oh, wow.

00:25:31.000 Yeah.

00:25:32.000 And, you know, they were very proud.

00:25:35.000 And, you know, it was funny because, I mean, I had like my mom's brother and my uncle would, you know, say stuff like, you know, when is Ricky going to stop doing this silly stuff and do something he can make a living at, you know?

00:25:47.000 And when is he going to grow up?

00:25:48.000 Oh, those people.

00:25:48.000 Yeah.

00:25:49.000 Oh, those people.

00:25:50.000 But, you know, my dad basically never grew up and I knew I never was going to, you know?

00:25:53.000 What did he do for a living?

00:25:55.000 Well, he did a bunch of different things.

00:25:56.000 He was a high school dropout because he had to help his family, his mother and father, pay bills.

00:26:03.000 He had a variety of not very good jobs.

00:26:05.000 He worked at Sears as a salesman.

00:26:07.000 He drove a truck.

00:26:08.000 He did stuff.

00:26:08.000 But he was very creative, and it was kind of held down in his lifetime.

00:26:14.000 Don't do that.

00:26:15.000 You can't do something you can make a living at.

00:26:17.000 And because of that, I benefited from that.

00:26:19.000 He supported the creativity.

00:26:22.000 I think I was a sophomore in high school.

00:26:25.000 He decided he wanted to try to make a living as an artist.

00:26:28.000 And we lived on my mom's bank teller salary for a number of years.

00:26:33.000 He hardly made any money at all.

00:26:36.000 But he was happy.

00:26:38.000 And he, because, I mean, like I said, he supported my creativity.

00:26:42.000 And he was really my first teacher.

00:26:44.000 He showed me what you could do with paint.

00:26:46.000 He knew a little bit about sculpture, you know.

00:26:49.000 He was also a fan of monster movies, you know.

00:26:52.000 And he saw, you know, the Frederick March, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it came out, you know, and told me all about it.

00:26:58.000 And that was a movie that they didn't have on TV that I really wanted to see, you know.

00:27:02.000 And he said when he saw it in the theaters, you know, he wouldn't have had it.

00:27:06.000 We're good to go.

00:27:12.000 We're good to go.

00:27:14.000 We're good to go.

00:27:24.000 I decided to get on the student council for the main reason this was my plan was I suggested that we could raise money for the school by showing movies after school.

00:27:33.000 We could rent 16 millimeter movies and show them and charge admission.

00:27:38.000 And I basically just went through all the movies I hadn't seen that I wanted to see and got those.

00:27:43.000 And there were maybe four or five people that showed up to see them, but I was happy.

00:27:47.000 That's awesome.

00:27:48.000 What was the first film that you did special effects for?

00:27:51.000 The first film was a film called The Octoman.

00:27:54.000 And it's kind of a cult classic because it's such a crappy movie, you know.

00:27:58.000 It was shot in 10 days at Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park.

00:28:04.000 What year was this?

00:28:06.000 I graduated from high school in 1969 and I went two years to a junior college.

00:28:12.000 69, 70, 71, I guess it was.

00:28:15.000 So you went from that to Star Wars only like five or six years later, right?

00:28:19.000 Yeah, something like that, yeah.

00:28:20.000 That's crazy.

00:28:21.000 Yeah, and King Kong and all that stuff.

00:28:23.000 Oh, that's right, yeah.

00:28:24.000 There's Yachtoman.

00:28:25.000 Yachtoman!

00:28:27.000 I didn't design it.

00:28:28.000 Oh my goodness.

00:28:29.000 Look at that thing.

00:28:49.000 Delivering plumbing supplies.

00:28:51.000 He went to the wrong building and the building he went into was called Cloakie Productions and they made Gumby and Davy and Goliath, stop motion animation, which I did stop motion as well.

00:29:01.000 Big Ray Harryhausen fan, you know.

00:29:05.000 And for some reason, I grew up in Covina, which is east of LA, like 30 or 40 miles.

00:29:10.000 And there wasn't anything film-related out there.

00:29:14.000 But for some reason, Cloakies was out there, I think because it was cheaper rent.

00:29:19.000 And on my quarter-a-week allowance, when I found a place I could buy rubber, it was like almost $9 for a quarter of rubber.

00:29:29.000 And it took me a lot of weeks and a lot of mowing lawns and a lot of stuff to save up that money.

00:29:34.000 And I said, I need a job.

00:29:36.000 So I didn't have a car.

00:29:38.000 We only had one car in the family.

00:29:39.000 And, you know, I went to any place I could walk to, supermarkets, you know, busboys, all this stuff.

00:29:45.000 Nobody wanted me.

00:29:46.000 And my dad said, Oh, I remember this place.

00:29:49.000 And it did stop motion.

00:29:50.000 And you'd stop motion, you know, maybe...

00:29:52.000 So I went there with my box of stuff.

00:29:54.000 And it was summer vacation between my junior and senior year of high school.

00:29:59.000 And they said, start tomorrow.

00:30:01.000 Got paid minimum wage, which I think was $1.25 or something at the time.

00:30:07.000 But that place was like a magnet for any weird kid or any guy that was like a stop-motion fan.

00:30:11.000 Any stop-motion person would show up there at one point or another.

00:30:14.000 And I met this guy named Doug Beswick, who was a few years older than me.

00:30:19.000 And we became, again, fast friends.

00:30:21.000 You know, he read Famous Monsters.

00:30:22.000 He was a Ray Harryhausen fan.

00:30:24.000 And Doug, when I did this Octoman film, Doug had a little workshop, and we did it in his workshop, and we did it together.

00:30:32.000 Wow.

00:30:33.000 But yeah, it was a real introduction to the film industry because it was the very first day's filming, filming in Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park.

00:30:41.000 We show up.

00:30:42.000 We went in Doug's 57 Chevy.

00:30:44.000 It had Octoman in the backseat.

00:30:46.000 And we show up there and looking around and there's nobody there.

00:30:50.000 And I go, what the hell?

00:30:52.000 And this is before cell phones and all that shit.

00:30:56.000 So we'd have to go.

00:30:57.000 We went back down the hill, down Bronson Canyon to, like, there was a market there, and we got a payphone, called the production office, and it was like, oh, yeah, we pushed one day.

00:31:06.000 We just forgot to tell you, you know, and it's like a movie called The Octoman.

00:31:11.000 You forgot to tell the people who were making the Octoman, the title character of the movie, that you weren't filming.

00:31:18.000 And it was also, I mean, they...

00:31:20.000 That's a perfect introduction to the movie industry, though.

00:31:22.000 Oh, it was.

00:31:23.000 And I learned that, you know, you can't believe anything they tell you.

00:31:27.000 You know, I mean, it was designed by somebody else.

00:31:29.000 And I got this job handed down through people I met at Cloakies.

00:31:33.000 It was going to be stop motion at one point.

00:31:35.000 They decided that was too expensive.

00:31:37.000 They're going to make a suit.

00:31:38.000 And the first thing I did was a little maquette.

00:32:02.000 A little what?

00:32:02.000 And it's like, kid, don't worry about it.

00:32:04.000 There's only going to be one shot of the Octoman in the movie where you actually see it.

00:32:07.000 The rest of the time, it's just going to be a shadow or a glimpse.

00:32:10.000 But we'll have a money shot where you can make sure it looks great.

00:32:15.000 The movie starts out with a close-up of his feet, basically.

00:32:19.000 And it was...

00:32:22.000 It was a real introduction.

00:32:23.000 I thought it was going to be like working on 8mm movies like I did as a kid.

00:32:28.000 Everybody just jumps in and we're making a movie.

00:32:31.000 Let's do it.

00:32:32.000 It wasn't that.

00:32:34.000 The DP, the director of photography, because I had long hair and Doug had long hair.

00:32:39.000 He called us the girls.

00:32:40.000 This was at a time when long hair was...

00:32:42.000 Get the girls to get their silly monster suit out.

00:32:46.000 Oh, great.

00:32:47.000 But we...

00:32:48.000 There was a...

00:32:49.000 If you can believe this, the Octoman was written by the guy who was the writer of Creature in the Black Lagoon.

00:32:57.000 And he also wrote It Came From Outer Space.

00:33:00.000 So it was basically those two scripts combined with ecology thrown in.

00:33:07.000 And he...

00:33:11.000 We, you know, it was like, there's this day where instead of in, you know, in the creature, they put a log across the lagoon and they can't get out.

00:33:19.000 You know, here it was a log across the street and they're driving in Winnebago and they can't get out.

00:33:24.000 They get out to try to get the log out and they open the Winnebago door and the Octoman's in there.

00:33:29.000 And he knocks a guy down, and then the other guy's supposed to pick up the log and throw it at the Octoman.

00:33:35.000 And I go, where's the prop log that we're going to use?

00:33:38.000 And he goes, it's that.

00:33:41.000 And I go, that's a tree limb.

00:33:44.000 That's going to hurt the guy in the suit, and it's going to hurt the suit.

00:33:47.000 And I go, we're going to rehearse this, right?

00:33:49.000 And he goes, no, we don't have time to rehearse it.

00:33:50.000 And I go, the Octoman's supposed to bend over and pick up Pierangeli, who was the female lead who killed herself after this movie.

00:33:57.000 Yeah.

00:33:58.000 I can tell you how good the movie was.

00:34:01.000 So when he goes to pick her up, let's cut there because if you cut, I can wrap the tentacles around her and it will look more like he's holding her.

00:34:07.000 So anyways, they start filming without rehearsing.

00:34:11.000 Octoman opens the door and knocks the guy down.

00:34:13.000 The guy picks up a log, throws at the Octoman, hits him, rips the suit.

00:34:18.000 He goes walking over and he's virtually blind.

00:34:21.000 He's looking out at two little holes out this far away.

00:34:23.000 It was a real claustrophobic suit, the poor guy Reed Morgan who played the Octoman.

00:34:27.000 It was great to deal with, but it was a very hard suit to wear.

00:34:31.000 Goes to pick up Pierangeli.

00:34:32.000 Nobody says cut, so he picks her up.

00:34:34.000 So walking around, the guy who knocked on the ground is laying on the ground, spread eagle.

00:34:39.000 He ends up stepping right on his nuts.

00:34:42.000 Falls over backwards, throws Pierangeli up against the Winnebago.

00:34:47.000 She's crying, says he wants her mother.

00:34:48.000 The other guy's holding her nuts.

00:34:50.000 The other guy broke his hand because a log fell on his hand.

00:34:53.000 And everybody's screaming.

00:34:54.000 I'm going, you ripped my suit!

00:34:55.000 Oh, God.

00:34:56.000 And we lost a day out of our 10-day shooting schedule.

00:34:59.000 So Harry Essex, who was the director and writer, was tearing pages out of the script like this.

00:35:06.000 We don't need this.

00:35:07.000 We don't need this.

00:35:08.000 And then when they tried to make a movie out of it, it made no sense.

00:35:11.000 I mean, I think the first 20 minutes are stock footage.

00:35:14.000 In the beginning, there was nothing.

00:35:15.000 And then there was slime.

00:35:17.000 I can't wait to watch it.

00:35:21.000 I think it's in public domain now.

00:35:22.000 I think it's on YouTube, but there's a Blu-ray out of it as well.

00:35:26.000 I might have to fire up a joint and watch that one.

00:35:29.000 Now, when you look back on that, I mean, it's got to be kind of, even though it sounds like a clusterfuck, it seems like it's kind of a fond memory as well, because that was where it started.

00:35:40.000 It was, yeah.

00:35:41.000 You got to see how much nonsense there is in the movie industry, but you also got a chance to get going.

00:35:47.000 Yeah, and I got, you know, we came up with a way to do this because we couldn't, It's a foam rubber suit and foam rubber has to be baked in an oven.

00:35:55.000 We didn't have a big oven.

00:35:56.000 We didn't have the mean.

00:35:58.000 So we came up with a clever solution.

00:36:00.000 And it's what I had to do so many times in films, do things that people hadn't done before on a budget and a schedule, you know, and try to figure out.

00:36:08.000 And that's part of the fun, you know.

00:36:09.000 Yeah.

00:36:10.000 But what was cool about the Octoman, the male lead was Kerwin Matthews, who was Sinbad in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, which I get a Ray Harryhausen film and I was a big fan of.

00:36:19.000 So one of the first things I had to do, there's a scene where the Octoman's tentacle is supposed to creep through this cave opening and they basically – Wadded up some tar paper and I stood behind the tar paper in Bronson Caves and stuck my hand in this tentacle and did this.

00:36:35.000 And when Kerwin walked by, I said, super dynamation, which is what Ray Harryhausen's technique he called for a few films.

00:36:43.000 And he goes, oh, you know about that.

00:36:45.000 So I thought that was really cool.

00:36:47.000 My kids found out about Harryhausen from Monsters, Inc.

00:36:51.000 And they were like, who's that?

00:36:53.000 Who's Harryhausen?

00:36:54.000 And I said, well, he's the guy that made all the early monster movies.

00:36:58.000 And so then we sat down and we watched King Kong together.

00:37:00.000 And they were scared at first.

00:37:01.000 They're like, oh my god, I'm scared.

00:37:02.000 But They started laughing when they saw King Kong.

00:37:06.000 The stop motion.

00:37:06.000 Yeah, I mean, it's today in comparison to, you know, even in comparison to your version of King Kong, when you could, you know, make it mechanized.

00:37:14.000 And, you know, it's just, it's amazing when you think about how far we came.

00:37:18.000 But, you know, yes, the stop motion.

00:37:21.000 And Harryhausen didn't animate on King Kong.

00:37:23.000 He did Mighty Joe Young.

00:37:24.000 Oh, okay.

00:37:25.000 But King Kong is what inspired him.

00:37:27.000 That was Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson, who were the animators on that.

00:37:30.000 Yeah.

00:37:30.000 He did, what was the one with Medusa?

00:37:36.000 Did he do that one?

00:37:37.000 Harryhausen, yeah.

00:37:38.000 Clash of the Titans.

00:37:39.000 Clash of the Titans, right.

00:37:39.000 That was him, right?

00:37:40.000 Well, again, and Ray was a one-man show.

00:37:42.000 You know, in stop motion, you know, it's 24 frames a second.

00:37:44.000 He did it all himself?

00:37:45.000 All himself.

00:37:46.000 And when you're animating seven skeletons, and Jason and the Argonauts, there's seven skeletons fighting seven guys.

00:37:50.000 Right.

00:37:51.000 He did He did all that himself?

00:37:52.000 Himself.

00:37:52.000 And I became friends with Ray.

00:37:55.000 Wow.

00:37:56.000 And I would say to him, and this was during the time when computer stuff was starting out, you know, and his movies were $50,000 movies, you know, the whole budget of the movie, you know, not just his effects, the early ones that he did, you know.

00:38:08.000 And I said, you know, doesn't it piss you off that now...

00:38:12.000 They get millions of dollars, and there's hundreds of people working on stuff that you did by yourself, you know?

00:38:17.000 Well, they could never take away his legacy, though.

00:38:19.000 Oh, no.

00:38:19.000 Even though he did it all...

00:38:21.000 But he was...

00:38:23.000 Not just a groundbreaker, but he's the guy.

00:38:27.000 When you think about stop-motion films and horror films, he's the guy that you think of.

00:38:33.000 Can you pull up Jason and the Argonaut skeleton scene?

00:38:35.000 I can't believe he did that all himself.

00:38:38.000 Because that's a very, very detailed and intricate scene.

00:38:41.000 No, because you have to match what they're doing.

00:38:43.000 Yes!

00:38:43.000 And you're in a room by yourself, moving a...

00:38:47.000 You know, a fraction of an inch, a puppet at a time, you know, and it takes forever, you know, and I mean, having, if you've never done stop motion, you can't appreciate it.

00:38:56.000 Oh my God, what year was this?

00:38:59.000 I'm not sure exactly.

00:39:01.000 And look, they pop out of the ground.

00:39:03.000 Yeah.

00:39:03.000 And it's a great Bernard Harriman music in this, you know, he always had the terrific scores in his films as well, you know, and again, he was a fan.

00:39:11.000 He was a fanboy who made a living doing something that he loved, you know, and And imagine being the actors and having to sort of respond to all this.

00:39:20.000 Yeah.

00:39:21.000 To these skeletons that are popping out of the ground with shields and swords.

00:39:25.000 Which aren't there.

00:39:26.000 Which aren't there, yeah.

00:39:27.000 Which, you know, came months later.

00:39:30.000 Yeah.

00:39:30.000 Okay, you've seen the skeleton now.

00:39:32.000 Yeah.

00:39:32.000 You're scared.

00:39:33.000 He's going to take your soul.

00:39:35.000 Well, Ray would kind of direct those scenes because most directors don't know what to do with that kind of stuff, you know.

00:39:41.000 But he was, you know, what I thought was great about Ray is like so many artists, you know, aren't appreciated until after they're gone.

00:39:49.000 You know, Ray saw the impact he had.

00:39:52.000 I mean, I went to his 90th birthday celebration in England.

00:39:58.000 The British Film Academy did this great tribute to Ray.

00:40:03.000 And everybody showed up.

00:40:05.000 I mean, Peter Jackson came.

00:40:06.000 People who didn't show up sent videos.

00:40:09.000 Steven Spielberg sent a video.

00:40:10.000 Jim Cameron did all talking about how much Ray's films and Ray's work influenced them.

00:40:16.000 And it was really great.

00:40:18.000 And it's so nice that he was able to be appreciated like that in his lifetime.

00:40:24.000 The funny thing is I'm getting that now with my book that's come out.

00:40:27.000 People are just going, oh my god, I love you so much and the stuff you've done.

00:40:31.000 It's nice to know that I served a purpose in my life.

00:40:37.000 You served a giant purpose and you served a big purpose in my life, man.

00:40:41.000 Like I said, I'm such a huge fan of your work.

00:40:43.000 And when you look back, what was the first thing that you did where you're like, okay, that was a good one?

00:40:50.000 Well, you know, it's funny.

00:40:51.000 Once you do something and you look at it, you see all the things that are wrong with it, you know.

00:40:54.000 And I always say, I wish I could see the film before I make this stuff because so many times the thing that's supposed to be the most important thing just isn't.

00:41:02.000 And something that you, like, threw together is all of a sudden the most important thing, you know.

00:41:07.000 I mean, American Werewolf was probably the one where – I mean, that's one that really put me on the map.

00:41:15.000 I mean, a lot of people say King Kong was.

00:41:16.000 But American Werewolf, you know, I looked at it and I thought, well, that's pretty cool.

00:41:22.000 But I also went, God, I wish we did this and I wish I didn't do that.

00:41:26.000 Right.

00:41:27.000 I see so many things that I would do differently now.

00:41:29.000 That movie's a masterpiece.

00:41:31.000 It's a great film.

00:41:33.000 It's a great film.

00:41:33.000 I mean, my second film was Schlock, which was John Landis' first film.

00:41:38.000 I was 20, and he was 21. And I had, again, I think I had six weeks, and I think I had $1,000, again, to make...

00:41:47.000 John played the Schlockthroppist.

00:41:49.000 I don't know if you've ever seen Schlockthroppist.

00:41:50.000 No, I never saw it.

00:41:50.000 That's another one you've got to watch.

00:41:52.000 Low budget, you know, movie shot by a kid, basically, you know.

00:41:57.000 With a, you know, and he, like I said, he played this, it was based, have you ever seen Trog?

00:42:03.000 Yes.

00:42:04.000 Joan Crawford did it?

00:42:04.000 Yes, yes.

00:42:05.000 He saw Trog and couldn't believe that they made this movie, so he was making like a joke version of Schlock, you know.

00:42:13.000 And he wanted to play this ape-man character, and it's like, well...

00:42:17.000 Okay, but you're going to be the director too?

00:42:20.000 So he had to be on set at 6 in the morning, whether schlock worked or not, all made up.

00:42:25.000 And it was shot in three weeks, and John and I were going on two hours sleep a night.

00:42:31.000 I would make him up.

00:42:32.000 We were out in Agura, where it used to be an Oakwood school where John went for a while and I think it was thrown out of.

00:42:40.000 And we lived and worked in this like screened patio that was left over in this dilapidated building.

00:42:47.000 And I was making up John on a bar stool and eventually he was like falling asleep and doing those, you know, that thing, you know, and I'd have to grab him.

00:42:56.000 For some reason, they were doing the dailies at MGM, so we would have to go from after a 12-hour day of filming and an hour removing the makeup, we'd get in the car, drive to MGM, look at the previous day's dailies, drive back, sleep for two hours, get up and start again.

00:43:10.000 Oh, my God.

00:43:11.000 And it was during a heat wave in Agura.

00:43:13.000 And the first day, John...

00:43:16.000 We're good to go.

00:43:38.000 And he said, my next film is going to be in American World.

00:43:55.000 Would sit in a chair like Lon Chaney Jr. and be still until he finished changing because I think it would be painful and I want him to be able to move and I want to show the pain and you know how would you do that?

00:44:06.000 I have no fucking idea but I would love to you know because we both love those transformation scenes you know.

00:44:13.000 Pull that transformation scene up.

00:44:15.000 The initial transformation scene is so fucking awesome because I remember seeing it in the theater.

00:44:21.000 What year was this?

00:44:22.000 1981, I think it was.

00:44:24.000 Okay, so I was 14 years old.

00:44:25.000 I was in high school, and I remember seeing this in the movie theater, and this was another one that sort of cemented the idea that I wanted to be a makeup artist.

00:44:33.000 When he pulls all his clothes off, and he's burning up, and then he looks at his hand, and his hand starts stretching out.

00:44:40.000 That was incredible!

00:44:42.000 This was just such a different werewolf, too.

00:44:44.000 Everything about it was different.

00:44:45.000 Yeah.

00:44:46.000 Well, again, and I credit John for that.

00:44:48.000 And he also said, you know, I want to do it in a brightly lit room.

00:44:51.000 It's not going to have horror film lighting.

00:44:52.000 It's going to be real, you know?

00:44:55.000 How did you do this?

00:44:55.000 How did you do the hand?

00:44:56.000 We called it a change-o hand.

00:44:58.000 It was actually a fake hand.

00:44:59.000 We storyboarded the whole sequence, and that's a different fake hand there.

00:45:02.000 That's the second one.

00:45:03.000 Right.

00:45:03.000 And that's another one there.

00:45:04.000 It's got syringes in it that we pump.

00:45:07.000 Now he's wearing an appliance hand that matches that, see?

00:45:09.000 Yeah.

00:45:11.000 And we storyboarded the whole sequence.

00:45:12.000 And as you saw when David first took off his clothes, he's not very hairy.

00:45:15.000 Right.

00:45:16.000 And I said, for me to glue a little bit of hair on, and then we do him a little hairier and a little hairier, it's better for us to work in reverse.

00:45:24.000 Let me do him in the hairiest first, and I'll pull hair off and trim it.

00:45:27.000 Oh, interesting.

00:45:28.000 Yeah.

00:45:29.000 But we boarded the whole thing out.

00:45:31.000 And this hair growing was reverse.

00:45:33.000 Yeah.

00:45:34.000 We punched hair through rubber and then pulled it through and we reverse printed it.

00:45:38.000 This is a whole fake back again with things coming out of it.

00:45:41.000 So you punched hair through rubber and pulled it through and then reversed it.

00:45:45.000 Oh, wow.

00:45:50.000 But we thought what would be the most impactful thing would be for his face to change last, but what I don't like about the transformation, like here, the wolf has a big mane of hair, so he's got this big hairy neck that I don't like.

00:46:02.000 Yeah.

00:46:05.000 David doesn't have lenses and his eyes were just that red.

00:46:08.000 That was a 10-hour day of makeup.

00:46:10.000 So just exhausted and with makeup on?

00:46:12.000 Yeah.

00:46:12.000 This was incredible, man.

00:46:14.000 That's crazy that he doesn't have any eyes.

00:46:16.000 He doesn't have anything in his eyes.

00:46:17.000 That's just his eyes.

00:46:19.000 Yeah.

00:46:19.000 Holy shit.

00:46:21.000 But yeah, this is the first stage change-o head.

00:46:23.000 So this is a rubber head that had mechanisms that push it out, you know.

00:46:27.000 And this is a second stage change-o head that stretches out like that.

00:46:31.000 The thing that was interesting, because, I mean, I was 30 when I did this.

00:46:35.000 It was at a time when there weren't people that did this kind of work.

00:46:39.000 Just a few in Hollywood, you know, like John Chambers who did Planet of the Apes.

00:47:01.000 I'm not good at math.

00:47:04.000 It still looks pretty decent.

00:47:05.000 Fucking awesome!

00:47:06.000 Not just pretty decent.

00:47:07.000 I mean, there's a reason why I have the American Werewolf, the Pat McGee version of it, sitting there in the front.

00:47:12.000 But now I have to call Pat and tell him the legs are off.

00:47:14.000 What's wrong with the legs?

00:47:15.000 They're too stretched out and too long.

00:47:18.000 You know, we actually...

00:47:19.000 That was the problem because I didn't know how I was going to make this four-legged wolf work.

00:47:23.000 And I thought, well, I'll figure out something.

00:47:26.000 And it came to me one night.

00:47:27.000 I thought...

00:47:28.000 I remember as a kid, you ever do that wheelbarrow race thing where somebody holds your feet and you're walking on your hands?

00:47:33.000 I thought, well, if we do something like that and have puppeteered legs in the back.

00:47:37.000 So the reality is, if you really see the full wolf, there's feet sticking out of his ass.

00:47:42.000 He's got two legs sticking out, but we had him on a platform with wheels.

00:47:46.000 And the back legs were puppeteered with little rods.

00:47:49.000 And the back legs come in, that's when you cut.

00:47:53.000 Right, right, right.

00:47:55.000 And a lot of the stuff, like in Piccadilly Circus and the big bus crash and stuff, that's me in a wheelchair with a head with John pushing me down the street.

00:48:02.000 Wow.

00:48:03.000 That was a great scene.

00:48:04.000 God, that was a great scene.

00:48:06.000 The werewolf comes bursting out of the...

00:48:08.000 The porno theater.

00:48:09.000 Porno theater, yeah.

00:48:10.000 Bites the guy in the head.

00:48:11.000 That script, I think, was the only script that I've worked on in my entire career.

00:48:16.000 The script that I read was basically the script we made.

00:48:19.000 The only difference was when John wrote the script originally...

00:48:22.000 That era cinema in Piccadilly Circus was a cartoon cinema.

00:48:27.000 And in the original script, it was a cartoon cinema.

00:48:29.000 But when we got there, it was a porno cinema.

00:48:32.000 So he changed that scene, you know, to a porno cinema.

00:48:35.000 Other than that, the script is basically verbatim what he wrote as a 20-year-old.

00:48:39.000 And his use of music and everything was groundbreaking at the time.

00:48:42.000 People didn't do the way he did.

00:48:44.000 And his friend that kept returning more and more rotten every time.

00:48:50.000 That was a genius idea as well.

00:48:52.000 That Jack had explained to him, like, hey man, you've got to kill yourself.

00:48:56.000 You're a werewolf, you're going to kill a bunch of people.

00:48:59.000 Everything about it was so unique.

00:49:01.000 It completely flipped the whole idea of what a werewolf movie was on its head.

00:49:06.000 Yeah.

00:49:06.000 And it worked.

00:49:08.000 And Griffin, who played Jack, when I first made him up in that makeup, as I was putting the stuff on, in the makeup chair, he's kind of getting more and more sad and sinking down in the chair.

00:49:21.000 And it's like...

00:49:23.000 What's wrong, Griffin?

00:49:24.000 Is something wrong?

00:49:25.000 And he goes, look at me.

00:49:26.000 And I go, yeah.

00:49:27.000 And he goes, look at me.

00:49:29.000 This is my big break.

00:49:29.000 And my throat's torn out.

00:49:31.000 And I mean, nobody's going to look at me.

00:49:33.000 And it's like, did you read the script?

00:49:36.000 Yeah.

00:49:37.000 Didn't it say your throat was torn out?

00:49:38.000 Yeah.

00:49:39.000 But I didn't think it would look like this.

00:49:41.000 And he goes, I did.

00:49:42.000 And that's what John thought it should look like.

00:49:44.000 So he was bummed out?

00:49:45.000 Well, he was at first.

00:49:46.000 Because it's disturbing to see...

00:49:48.000 But it's a great role.

00:49:50.000 Yeah, no, and he was brilliant, and he was terrific to work with, you know, but the initial shock of seeing himself torn up was, it was hard for him to take.

00:49:58.000 Because it's so realistic.

00:49:59.000 Yeah, but he, you know, I thought, okay, I got a call.

00:50:01.000 John was in England, already scouting locations, and so I said, you know, you got to talk to Griffin.

00:50:07.000 He's, you know, kind of upset about what he looks like, you know.

00:50:10.000 But I took that opportunity, being the sensitive guy that I am, to tell him that the third part of his transformation was he was actually going to be a puppet.

00:50:20.000 It wasn't really going to be him because he was supposed to become basically a talking skeleton.

00:50:26.000 And the makeup process is an additive process.

00:50:30.000 And, you know, he would have to be a huge skull to look right, you know.

00:50:34.000 And he wasn't too happy about that either.

00:50:36.000 But I said, but I want you to operate the mouth because you're doing the lip sync, you know, you're doing the voice, you know.

00:50:42.000 So he operated the puppet.

00:50:44.000 But he turned out to be a great guy, you know.

00:50:46.000 And I thought he was brilliant in the film.

00:50:49.000 Yeah.

00:50:50.000 The whole film.

00:50:51.000 The film's amazing, and it's funny, too.

00:50:53.000 That's one of the things that's interesting about the film.

00:50:55.000 It's silly, but horrific.

00:50:58.000 The violence and the explosive scenes of the werewolf ripping people apart, but then some of it is hilarious.

00:51:06.000 Well, that whole sequence in the porno theater with all the dead people, I mean, when we were filming it, I was kind of going...

00:51:13.000 Is this funny?

00:51:15.000 You know, is this going to work?

00:51:16.000 It was funny.

00:51:17.000 It was a welcome sort of comic relief from the graphic horror of the werewolf tearing people apart.

00:51:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:51:25.000 And, you know, I think it's a brilliant film.

00:51:27.000 It's a brilliant film.

00:51:28.000 And it changed my life.

00:51:29.000 I mean, I got my first Oscar for that film, you know, and...

00:51:33.000 I mean, so fortunate to me that John came into my life, and this happened again because of Don Post Studios that I talked about, where they made the Halloween masks.

00:51:45.000 John was a mailboy at Fox for a while, and he knew John Chambers.

00:51:51.000 He would deliver mail to John Chambers, who did the Planet of the Apes makeup.

00:51:55.000 And he talked to John Chambers at first about doing Schlock.

00:51:57.000 And John said, well, I need $250,000.

00:52:00.000 And the budget of the whole film, I think, was $30,000.

00:52:03.000 So I think he basically didn't want to deal with this hyperactive kid.

00:52:10.000 So he sent him to Don Post Studios.

00:52:12.000 And Don Post said, well, same thing.

00:52:15.000 They didn't really want to deal with this kid.

00:52:17.000 And it would be way too much money.

00:52:20.000 Right.

00:52:21.000 But they said, there's a kid who comes in here and buys materials.

00:52:23.000 I used to go there to buy materials because in those days, now there are stores that sell all the supplies that you need.

00:52:28.000 I used to have to drive all over California to get what I need.

00:52:31.000 And some stuff, they would only sell you in a 55-gallon drum, which I couldn't afford, you know.

00:52:36.000 Like polyurethane foam, which is a two-part foam that foams up, a chemical reaction that foams it up.

00:52:42.000 It makes cyanide gas when it foams, which nobody told me.

00:52:47.000 But Don Post would pour some in a can.

00:52:49.000 You go, here you go, kid.

00:52:51.000 First time I used it in my bedroom, I practically died.

00:52:54.000 Really?

00:52:55.000 Yeah.

00:52:55.000 And I have a real strong – I have a very strong allergic reaction to it now when it – Because of that?

00:53:01.000 Yeah.

00:53:02.000 Wow.

00:53:02.000 I mean, my throat closed up.

00:53:03.000 I could hardly breathe.

00:53:04.000 Whoa.

00:53:05.000 And I didn't know what was going on, and I found out what it was.

00:53:07.000 Fucking cyanide.

00:53:08.000 Jesus.

00:53:09.000 Yeah.

00:53:09.000 But because of that, because I left, that's the only time in my life I actually had a business card.

00:53:13.000 And John says, you know, it said Rick Baker Monster Maker, but I think it said Rick Baker Makeup Artist.

00:53:18.000 But I gave a card and some pictures to Don Post, and when they were trying to get rid of this kid who wanted a funky gorilla suit thing, they said, well, this guy's made some gorilla suits.

00:53:26.000 Why don't you talk to him?

00:53:28.000 And John lived in Westwood near the cemetery there, the Veterans Cemetery.

00:53:31.000 He drove out to Covina.

00:53:34.000 And again, I was still pretty shy at that point.

00:53:36.000 And my bedroom at that point was, you know, I slept on a convertible sofa because I had gotten enough money to buy one so I could fold it up and have more floor space to work.

00:53:45.000 But my masks had work tables everywhere, you know.

00:53:49.000 And John is very loud and...

00:53:53.000 I'm hyperactive and he was coming in and he was flipping out over the stuff that I made, you know, and like touching it and stuff.

00:53:59.000 And I'm going, oh, you know, it's like this guy's in my room and he's touching my stuff and he's really scaring me, you know.

00:54:06.000 But I mean, thank God.

00:54:07.000 I mean, American Werewolf, you know, put me on the map and I mean, I – I did Coming to America, and my introduction to Eddie Murphy was, you know, and I did a lot of films with Eddie.

00:54:18.000 And because of John, I actually met my wife, Sylvia, on a John Landis film, where he had me play.

00:54:26.000 Originally, it was a Jesus Freak.

00:54:29.000 It was a film called Into the Night, and it was all filmed at night.

00:54:33.000 And met my wife on Hollywood Boulevard in front of Fredericks of Hollywood.

00:54:37.000 In the middle of the night, and it turned out they changed it to a dope dealer.

00:54:40.000 I was playing a dope dealer, and Sylvia was the hairstylist on the film.

00:54:44.000 And John came in and says, I want you to be in the movie.

00:54:47.000 I want you to play the part you were born to play, a hooker.

00:54:50.000 So my wife was a hooker in the background.

00:54:53.000 And there's a picture of us.

00:54:55.000 It's in the book, actually, on the night we met in front of Fredericks of Hollywood.

00:54:59.000 Oh, that's cool.

00:54:59.000 And now we have two amazing children and a great life.

00:55:05.000 And I owe John a lot.

00:55:06.000 Well, you and John made magic.

00:55:08.000 You really did.

00:55:10.000 I mean, that movie was so good.

00:55:11.000 You know, and as we said, one of the things about that film is it was so strategic in its use of the werewolf.

00:55:18.000 You know, that you really, when you got a chance to see it, like one of my favorite scenes was when the guy, the businessman is in the subway and he's running away from the werewolf and you know it's chasing him but you don't see it.

00:55:29.000 And you don't see it until he's stumbling on the escalator and then you see it at the bottom of the escalator just for a second.

00:55:33.000 Just walking into the frame.

00:55:34.000 Just walking into the frame and you're like, fuck yeah.

00:55:36.000 Woo!

00:55:38.000 Yes!

00:56:11.000 Right, right, right.

00:56:17.000 Was that the case with the cantina scene in Star Wars?

00:56:21.000 Because the Star Wars scene, that's a crazy scene because you've got so many characters in that scene.

00:56:29.000 And today, when you go back and look at it, like...

00:56:32.000 It's pretty cheesy.

00:56:33.000 You see masks.

00:56:34.000 Yeah.

00:56:34.000 Well, I... That came about – originally, the film was done in England.

00:56:40.000 Nobody knew Star Wars was going to be Star Wars.

00:56:42.000 Stuart Freeborn was the makeup artist in the film.

00:56:44.000 He did the Wookiee.

00:56:45.000 He did the cantina scene originally, but George wanted to embellish on it and didn't like a lot of the stuff that he did.

00:56:52.000 So at ILM, which was in Van Nuys then, Industrial Light and Magic, when it first started, the guys that were doing the visual effects for Star Wars, my friends that I met at Cloakies, Dennis Murren and Ken Ralston, were shooting the special effects.

00:57:07.000 And George came in and said, do you know anybody that can make a mask?

00:57:10.000 Because I want to add some masks to the cantina scene.

00:57:13.000 And they go, yeah, we do.

00:57:14.000 So they called me in.

00:57:16.000 So I went over to Valjean Avenue and George on a flatbed editor showed me the sequence as it existed.

00:57:21.000 And I was flipping out.

00:57:22.000 I was like, what a cool idea to have this bar full of aliens, you know?

00:57:26.000 And I go, let's do, you know, let's do, we could do one that has like, you know, like, that's kind of like an alien pirate that's got a, like, alien parent character and this stuff.

00:57:34.000 He goes, well, we don't have any money, you know?

00:57:36.000 It's like...

00:57:37.000 We've already spent the money.

00:57:39.000 We don't have a lot of money for this.

00:57:41.000 I just want masks.

00:57:43.000 And I said, you know what?

00:57:44.000 I have a bunch of stuff I made myself for fun that we can throw in there.

00:57:49.000 There's a devil guy.

00:57:51.000 I made that five years before Star Wars.

00:57:54.000 There's a werewolf guy and another guy with glowy eyes.

00:57:57.000 I made those before Star Wars.

00:57:58.000 I just said, you can use them.

00:58:00.000 I thought they were going to be stuck in the background, you know, but we did like the Cantina Band, you know.

00:58:04.000 The first aliens that you see, almost all the first aliens you see are all the ones that we did.

00:58:09.000 I think we did 30. But what was great, yeah, that was one of the masks I made before.

00:58:15.000 He's good.

00:58:17.000 Jamie's the best.

00:58:18.000 Yeah.

00:58:18.000 Play that, Jamie.

00:58:22.000 Yeah, that was such a great scene, too, though.

00:58:25.000 These are Stuart Freeborn's things, you know.

00:58:27.000 But the thing that's great, the Cantina Band was never there.

00:58:31.000 And when you see the movie, you think it's there.

00:58:34.000 And I've used this so many times where I say, can we shoot this like in post-production?

00:58:39.000 That's the devil guy, yeah.

00:58:40.000 And these guys were the guys that we, one of the guys, some of the guys we made.

00:58:43.000 So you shot the Alien Band in post?

00:58:45.000 Yeah, in Los Angeles by different people at a different time.

00:58:50.000 And I've said to, you know, when I say to people, can we shoot this in post?

00:58:54.000 And Because what happens, you know, most directors don't like dealing with this shit, you know, and they'll put it off to the last shot of the day and then it's like, well, you got 45 minutes and I go, but this is the money shot, you know, and I prepared for months for this and you give me 45 minutes to do this.

00:59:08.000 It's not right.

00:59:08.000 You know, let's shoot in post-production.

00:59:10.000 Well, that'll never work.

00:59:11.000 It'll never match.

00:59:12.000 It's like, did you see Star Wars?

00:59:13.000 Yeah.

00:59:14.000 You know, the band that's in the cantina?

00:59:15.000 Yeah.

00:59:16.000 That was shot by different people in a different country months later.

00:59:26.000 We're good to go.

00:59:43.000 It was such a great scene.

00:59:45.000 Again, it was a great idea and people – I did not make that one.

00:59:50.000 That was on Stewart's.

00:59:52.000 People think of it fondly and it's more that it's a great idea than that work is great.

00:59:57.000 Yeah, well, it was a great – Yeah.

01:00:24.000 Mm-hmm.

01:00:37.000 And John contacted me and said, you know, Michael Jackson wants to do this American Warwolf-like music video, you know, for the song Thriller, which I hadn't heard.

01:00:46.000 And it was like, you know, Michael Jackson, Little Michael Jackson, Jackson 5?

01:00:49.000 Yeah, you know, he's not called that anymore, you know.

01:00:52.000 And so he goes, John says, I'll send you a cassette, listen to it and get some ideas, you know.

01:00:57.000 And this was when we had Little Walkman, you know, and I'd listened to it with one.

01:01:01.000 I had another one that I would like, like, pre-associate ideas when I was listening, you know.

01:01:08.000 It was like – I thought, well, we came up with the idea of doing these zombie dancers.

01:01:14.000 And I said, well, I'm sure you're going to hire the dancers way in advance so they can learn the dance and stuff.

01:01:19.000 And he goes, no, they only need a couple of days.

01:01:22.000 So they hired him like three days before we filmed.

01:01:24.000 And he went, I can't – that doesn't give me time to take life masks and do all the stuff that I would do.

01:01:30.000 And these zombies should be really cool, you know.

01:01:32.000 So I said, how about if the first zombies you see are like me and my crew, because we already have life masks, we can start those today.

01:01:39.000 And we can spend the time on making some cool ones.

01:01:41.000 So I'm in Thriller coming out of a crypt like this, you know.

01:01:44.000 And all my crew basically are the first guys that come out of the ground and break through windows.

01:01:48.000 But the dancers, I said, I'll figure out a way we can do them.

01:01:51.000 And I, because I had a number of life masks of different people, and small, medium, large, male, small, medium, large, female.

01:01:58.000 And we sculpted, we kept pieces, we called them like bandit masks.

01:02:02.000 They were kind of like this, around this area, like a bandit in a movie.

01:02:07.000 Yeah, it's like a raccoon mask.

01:02:08.000 Yeah, and it didn't have the nose on it because, you know, proportionally you could get away with more.

01:02:13.000 So we had different sculptures of small, medium, large male, small, medium, large female that we would just say, okay, you're a medium male number two.

01:02:21.000 And we made these big teeth that we could pop in their mouth and put some denture lining material and fit them.

01:02:26.000 So the dancer makeups were not as good as the more featured makeups.

01:02:29.000 But Michael in the upper left-hand corner of that one, Jamie, with the eyes.

01:02:33.000 Yeah, look at that.

01:02:33.000 Like, that was excellent.

01:02:35.000 Yeah.

01:02:35.000 And again, we kept it that way.

01:02:36.000 But what happened is the zombies after that, everybody was just doing pieces like this.

01:02:41.000 I only did it like that because of the limitations I had in that thing, you know?

01:02:45.000 But that was, I mean, that was another really quick job and very little money.

01:02:51.000 Thriller was very little money?

01:02:52.000 For me.

01:02:54.000 It turned, I mean, they spent the money, they had a lot of cameras and a lot of stuff when they're filming.

01:03:00.000 But it, I was, you know, working day and night, every day of the week to get this stuff done.

01:03:05.000 And I think?

01:03:22.000 It always looks horrifying to see somebody having a life mask taken.

01:03:25.000 And I go, I don't need, and Michael's really shy.

01:03:28.000 I don't need, we don't need this.

01:03:30.000 I don't want this.

01:03:31.000 He goes, shut up.

01:03:32.000 We're doing it.

01:03:32.000 You know, I was like, fuck, you know, I was not happy about it.

01:03:36.000 But then so many people have come up to me who are makeup artists now and go, the reason I'm a makeup artist is because I saw the making of Thriller and it inspired me to do this, you know.

01:03:46.000 My stock answer is, you thought that if this idiot could do it, I can do it.

01:03:52.000 Well, there was a time where music videos were a new thing, and then Thriller changed what a music video is.

01:04:02.000 It was so huge.

01:04:03.000 It was a...

01:04:04.000 A world premiere event that was on MTV. And it's so hard for kids today to understand what that means.

01:04:10.000 But we were all gathered around the TV waiting for the Michael Jackson thriller world premiere.

01:04:17.000 And it premiered and it changed what a music video is.

01:04:22.000 Then all of a sudden it became this film.

01:04:24.000 And it was really cool because Michael Jackson was this sweet guy and he's on a date with this beautiful girl.

01:04:30.000 And the next thing you know he's a fucking werecat or whatever he was.

01:04:33.000 Yeah, that's right.

01:04:34.000 Was that supposed to be a cat?

01:04:35.000 Yeah.

01:04:36.000 He wanted to be a werewolf.

01:04:38.000 And I just thought, you know, I don't think he should be a werewolf.

01:04:39.000 And I thought something feline would fit him better, you know?

01:04:43.000 And I originally did like a Black Panther.

01:04:45.000 And then I was afraid of the Black Panther.

01:04:48.000 I didn't want him to be associated with the Black Panthers.

01:04:50.000 You know what I mean?

01:04:51.000 The political part.

01:04:52.000 Yeah.

01:04:52.000 So I then became more of fantasy.

01:04:54.000 I gave it longer hair and like, See if you can find his transformation to the cat.

01:04:59.000 Because it was reminiscent and somewhat of American Werewolf, but cool and unique in its own way.

01:05:05.000 We didn't have the time to.

01:05:07.000 I wasn't sure what it was.

01:05:08.000 I was like, is that a cat?

01:05:09.000 Is that a werewolf?

01:05:10.000 What is that?

01:05:11.000 People call it a werewolf.

01:05:12.000 Sometimes people call it a cat.

01:05:13.000 I just thought it was cool looking.

01:05:16.000 It was definitely cool looking, whatever it was.

01:05:18.000 But you know what happened?

01:05:19.000 The thriller was like, work, work, work, work, work.

01:05:21.000 And originally it was going to be My crew were going to be the guys that do the makeups, and they were all non-union.

01:05:28.000 And at the last minute, it became a union production, so I had to hire union makeup artists to do the dancers.

01:05:36.000 And many of them were people I didn't know, and there weren't a lot of people that were good at this stuff.

01:05:42.000 Yeah, again, we had little bladders in his hand.

01:05:44.000 There's actually an American Werewolf hand in here at one point, I think.

01:05:47.000 Oh, really?

01:05:48.000 Yeah.

01:05:48.000 You had a leftover hand?

01:05:49.000 Yeah, that's a nail-growing thing.

01:05:51.000 It was from American Werewolf.

01:05:52.000 And then you did a similar thing with the ears.

01:05:54.000 Yeah.

01:05:54.000 And then he had the whiskers.

01:05:56.000 Yeah.

01:05:57.000 Yeah, it's before his hair grew a little silly.

01:06:00.000 When you look at that, you're like, what is that?

01:06:02.000 Is that a cat?

01:06:03.000 Whatever it is, it's cool.

01:06:04.000 It was an amazing experience because I was really stressed out the day that we were filming The Dancers.

01:06:12.000 I had to make up Michael as a zombie.

01:06:14.000 I had a number of makeup artists I didn't even know and hadn't worked with before that were doing other zombies and I'm running through trailers going, no, no, no, like this.

01:06:22.000 I'm making up Michael and it's like, oh man.

01:06:25.000 And we were filming in Vernon, downtown Los Angeles, next to the former John Meatpacking place.

01:06:31.000 And they had just slaughtered the animals and it had this weird smell in the air.

01:06:35.000 And then the dance started.

01:06:37.000 And all of a sudden, just like this wave went over me.

01:06:42.000 The stress went away and I just was looking at what was happening in front of me.

01:06:46.000 And I was going, oh my God, look at this.

01:06:47.000 And people would pay money to see this.

01:06:49.000 And I get to see this.

01:06:51.000 I saw the Swirler Dance happening for the first time there when it was being filmed.

01:06:57.000 How many times did they shoot it?

01:06:59.000 Not that many, I don't think.

01:07:00.000 But I think there was six cameras on it.

01:07:02.000 The whole street front was filled with cameras.

01:07:07.000 But the other thing that was so cool about it, that was one of the dancer makeups.

01:07:13.000 Michael, when we were doing, in pre-production, Michael did a Motown special that was on television where he moonwalked for the first time.

01:07:22.000 And nobody had seen the moonwalk.

01:07:25.000 And I didn't see it.

01:07:26.000 I was busy working.

01:07:27.000 But one of my crew went home at night and recorded it.

01:07:31.000 And he goes, you're not going to believe this is the same kid that was in our makeup chair the other day.

01:07:35.000 Because Michael was very shy as well.

01:07:36.000 Really meek and quiet in person.

01:07:39.000 And he's so dynamic on stage.

01:07:43.000 He's like two different people.

01:07:44.000 I mean, when Michael's performing, he's incredible.

01:07:48.000 To say he was unique is the biggest understatement in the history of the world.

01:07:55.000 But this whole scene with him when he becomes a zombie, it was so bizarre, too.

01:07:59.000 Even the dancing was so strange.

01:08:02.000 It was cool, though.

01:08:03.000 It was really cool.

01:08:04.000 And to see it live for the first time, out in the cold with the...

01:08:08.000 They don't do anything like this anymore.

01:08:10.000 I mean, really, it doesn't happen.

01:08:12.000 Yeah, well, you know, it's funny.

01:08:13.000 Like you've said a number of times, I try to explain to my daughters that, you know, we had television, but I had a TV guide.

01:08:21.000 I would look at every page and try to find when a monster movie is going to be on and have to watch it then or I couldn't see it.

01:08:27.000 And if I wanted to see it again, I would have to wait.

01:08:29.000 A year or whatever.

01:08:31.000 There wasn't an internet.

01:08:32.000 I had to go to the library to find books on makeup, which there weren't very many.

01:08:37.000 Now there's all these YouTube videos.

01:08:40.000 I even have some.

01:08:41.000 But it's a different world.

01:08:43.000 I mean, the information wasn't as available.

01:08:45.000 And you couldn't just call up, let's see Thriller.

01:08:49.000 Yeah.

01:08:51.000 Now, when you did The Wolfman, was there a push to do some sort of CGI version of that?

01:08:58.000 Was there a discussion about how to do it?

01:09:02.000 I expected that it would do it CGI because everything at that time was basically CGI. And I had a friend that got a copy of the script and I read it and it read like a CGI thing.

01:09:16.000 And I was actually filming at Universal.

01:09:19.000 We were filming some of the Norbit stuff at Universal.

01:09:22.000 And I went to a producer there that I knew who was a visual effects producer as well.

01:09:28.000 And I asked him if he knew anything about the Wolfman, you know, because I said, I'd love to do this, you know.

01:09:33.000 I mean, that's one of the films that made me do what I do, you know.

01:09:37.000 And I said, is it going to be CG? And he goes, no, actually, they were talking about it being a makeup.

01:09:41.000 And I go, well, will you put my name in there?

01:09:43.000 You know, I would love to do this.

01:09:47.000 The original director wanted it to be a makeup and I thought we were going to do transformation.

01:09:53.000 We actually built stuff for a transformation.

01:09:55.000 It was a weird film in so many ways.

01:09:58.000 It seemed like, you know, Benicio was great to work with.

01:10:02.000 He wanted to be the wolf man, you know.

01:10:05.000 He's a monster, a real monster kid, too.

01:10:09.000 Anthony Hopkins was great.

01:10:10.000 I did it with my friends Dave and Lew Elsie.

01:10:14.000 But I think we were the only people that wanted to be working on a movie called The Wolfman.

01:10:17.000 I think everybody else was embarrassed that they were working on a movie called The Wolfman.

01:10:20.000 Really?

01:10:21.000 Yeah.

01:10:21.000 And they would do things.

01:10:22.000 The production manager called me into the office once and said, What is this?

01:10:27.000 Why are you buying all this hair?

01:10:29.000 What is this hair for?

01:10:31.000 I go, seriously?

01:10:32.000 Why do you need this hair?

01:10:34.000 And he had a big, behind his desk, he had a big sign that said, wolf man.

01:10:37.000 And I went and covered it up, and I'll cover up the wolf part with my hands.

01:10:40.000 I go, right now we have this, a man.

01:10:42.000 I'm going to make him a wolf man, and I need hair for that.

01:10:46.000 I go, why do you need hair?

01:10:47.000 Because wolves have fur.

01:10:49.000 I was like, what else?

01:10:50.000 What the fuck?

01:10:50.000 I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you, you know?

01:10:53.000 He goes, well, I mean, do you need all of that hair?

01:10:55.000 You know what I mean?

01:10:56.000 And it was like that through the whole movie.

01:10:58.000 It's just so embarrassing that you have to talk to someone like that.

01:11:00.000 I know.

01:11:01.000 That they don't just let you do whatever you do.

01:11:03.000 I know.

01:11:03.000 And, you know, I think people who are in the industry who have to deal with this stuff all the time to think that I never have to, you know?

01:11:10.000 Right.

01:11:10.000 It happens all the time, you know?

01:11:11.000 It seems like everybody has to.

01:11:13.000 Yeah.

01:11:13.000 But I mean, it was very frustrating.

01:11:15.000 But again, Dave and Lou Elsie and I, we'd worked day and night.

01:11:20.000 And when everybody was gone, we had the best time.

01:11:22.000 We're working on a Wolfman movie.

01:11:24.000 And when we first filmed the sequence in the gypsy camp where there's all these gypsies and fog and stuff, it's like...

01:11:31.000 Yeah, that was cool.

01:11:32.000 Wolfman movie, you know?

01:11:34.000 Well, that's what was – it was very reminiscent of the old movies, but like a new version of the old movies with the fog and the gypsy camp and all that jazz.

01:11:43.000 It was really similar to the original Lon Chaney.

01:11:47.000 Yeah, and it had kind of a Hammer film feel to it, too, you know?

01:11:53.000 And we, and Anthony Hopkins' makeup was, you know, a little more Curse of the Werewolf, Christopher, not Christopher, I was going to say Christopher, what was his name?

01:12:03.000 Oliver Reed, who played that, had that kind of feel to it.

01:12:07.000 And I mean, like I said, Benicio is a real big fan of the horror films, and we got along great.

01:12:13.000 In fact...

01:12:14.000 He would come into the makeup trailer with old monster magazines that he bought on the internet.

01:12:21.000 There he is.

01:12:23.000 He would quiz me on stuff.

01:12:26.000 What's this?

01:12:27.000 I knew everything.

01:12:28.000 I knew everything on every page.

01:12:29.000 We connected.

01:12:32.000 We bonded over that.

01:12:34.000 The scene where he makes the transformation in the medical theater, that was a great scene.

01:12:39.000 It's all CG, though.

01:12:41.000 Is that all CG? It's all CG. Oh, no.

01:12:43.000 It's based a lot on ideas that I had.

01:12:45.000 Because they said, well, we've got to do the great transformation like American Werewolf.

01:12:49.000 And I said...

01:12:51.000 American Werewolf, we had a naked man who changed into a four-legged hound from hell.

01:12:55.000 Here we have Benicio de Toro, and we have Benicio de Toro with some hair on his face and some teeth.

01:13:01.000 The changes aren't the same.

01:13:04.000 We can't stretch out his body.

01:13:06.000 Well, we want to have that same kind of feel, so I said, well, how about if we do things worse?

01:13:10.000 We're good to go.

01:13:38.000 But it was a really weird deal.

01:13:40.000 I mean, it's like we were the unwanted children in that movie, you know.

01:13:44.000 That's so crazy.

01:13:45.000 For me to hear something like that, it's so, it's stunning.

01:13:49.000 Because I would have assumed that, in my eyes, you're Hollywood royalty.

01:13:54.000 Like, you're the guy who made American Werewolf in London.

01:13:57.000 You're the guy who made so many of these incredible movies with makeup and special effects.

01:14:02.000 I would think they'd be pumped.

01:14:03.000 That you were there.

01:14:04.000 Well, yeah, I thought that too, but it wasn't the case.

01:14:07.000 But, you know, I mean, something interesting, when I read this book on my career, I complained too much about the film industry, and I shouldn't, because it's been really good to me.

01:14:18.000 I mean, like I said, it was my hobby, and I made a decent living at it, and I got awards for it, and I got free food and things, you know.

01:14:25.000 And it is magic.

01:14:27.000 Keep that rolling.

01:14:29.000 It's like time traveling, like working on this movie.

01:14:31.000 When we're in London in areas that haven't changed since the 1800s and you have all these people in period costumes, it really is like your time travel.

01:14:41.000 You get to work with some really amazing people.

01:14:44.000 Yeah, see, this is all CG. Really well done, CG. It's really well done.

01:14:47.000 Yeah, and Steve Begg, who was the visual effects supervisor, was a really great guy, and he was really upset that we weren't able to do this stuff as well.

01:14:58.000 But I think they did a terrific job.

01:15:00.000 And I like CG to a degree.

01:15:05.000 I mean, I like the fact that it's another technique that we can use to do things that we can't do in the real world with rubber.

01:15:12.000 I just don't like that they do things when we can do it.

01:15:17.000 And I think a lot of it comes down to...

01:15:22.000 Before American Werewolf, I would have to try to beg people to let me do something.

01:15:25.000 I mean, it was like, can I put a mustache and a scar on this guy?

01:15:32.000 After American Werewolf, I would get scripts with stuff in it.

01:15:35.000 I had no idea how the hell I was going to do it, like crazy, crazy stuff.

01:15:39.000 But they would say to me, what...

01:15:42.000 Because they did a lot of interviews after American Werewolf, and they said, what is the...

01:15:50.000 We're good to go.

01:16:01.000 But the problem is I need answers a year before we start filming because I need to make this stuff.

01:16:07.000 And usually a director's on another movie then and doesn't want – well, eventually after I hound them, I try to get an answer.

01:16:14.000 Well, give me some kind of answer just to make me shut up.

01:16:18.000 CG, all that stuff comes in post.

01:16:21.000 The film's already made.

01:16:22.000 You kind of cut it together.

01:16:23.000 They start making the stuff.

01:16:25.000 But this is obviously makeup.

01:16:26.000 That is, yeah.

01:16:27.000 So it was CG during the transformation scene.

01:16:30.000 Until he's the werewolf.

01:16:30.000 And then when he's the werewolf, this was done in a different day?

01:16:34.000 Yeah, well, I mean, the CG was done all in post, yeah.

01:16:37.000 Right.

01:16:38.000 But yeah, him sitting in the chair was Benicio on the day, and that's actually the stunt double.

01:16:43.000 And so sometimes when he was running, he was running on all fours.

01:16:46.000 Yeah, and leg extensions.

01:16:49.000 And most of that stuff is Spencer Wilding, who was our stunt double.

01:16:54.000 There's some shots of close-ups.

01:16:57.000 This is Spencer, the stunt double.

01:16:58.000 Yeah, but that was what was weird about it.

01:17:00.000 It's like he's running, but he's got kind of like dog legs.

01:17:03.000 Yeah, well, he's a werewolf.

01:17:04.000 Yeah, but he's running on two legs with dog legs.

01:17:07.000 He's a biped.

01:17:08.000 I get it.

01:17:10.000 That's Benicio.

01:17:11.000 But it was a hybrid, you know, of American Werewolf and the original Wolfman.

01:17:16.000 Well, you know, the Wolfman had, you know, he stayed on the balls of his feet, you know, to try to get that illusion of, like, dog legs.

01:17:22.000 Oh, the original one?

01:17:23.000 Yeah.

01:17:24.000 And, you know, it's so funny because I walked like that as a kid all the time, you know, and would do things, and so could Dave Elsie.

01:17:31.000 But when we tried to get the stunt guys or even Benicio to do it, they couldn't do it.

01:17:35.000 They couldn't walk on their toes?

01:17:36.000 On their balls of their feet like that with their heels up.

01:17:38.000 Why not?

01:17:39.000 I don't know, you know.

01:17:40.000 And it's like, how come I can do it?

01:17:42.000 But it's also something, a skill I developed as a child.

01:17:45.000 Oh, that's hilarious.

01:17:48.000 Yeah.

01:17:48.000 Now, when you see a film like that, and you think about all the difficulties that you had in making it, was there ever a film where they let you just go crazy, just do whatever you wanted to do?

01:18:03.000 Well, pretty much American Werewolf.

01:18:04.000 Yeah.

01:18:04.000 Well, that was the best one.

01:18:06.000 Yeah.

01:18:06.000 And again, you know, Gremlins 2, which I did, was a film I turned down numerous times.

01:18:12.000 My friend Chris – I can't speak.

01:18:14.000 Chris Wayless did the original Gremlins.

01:18:17.000 And I didn't basically want to copy Chris's work.

01:18:21.000 And I also knew it was a big job, a lot of stuff.

01:18:25.000 Yeah.

01:18:25.000 And they kept after me.

01:18:27.000 Chris was unavailable.

01:18:28.000 I think he was doing The Fly.

01:18:30.000 The Jeff Goldblum version?

01:18:32.000 Yeah, which is amazing.

01:18:33.000 Jeff was great.

01:18:34.000 He should have won an Oscar.

01:18:35.000 I mean, that was one of the all-time great performances.

01:18:37.000 Yeah, a lot of people forgot about that movie.

01:18:38.000 Oh, no, he's brilliant in that.

01:18:42.000 But they said, what can we do to...

01:18:47.000 We're good to go.

01:19:10.000 Making them individual characters means I had to have six versions of each one.

01:19:14.000 So we made hundreds of things.

01:19:16.000 But I said, you know, if I can make them characters and change the design some, I'd be more interested.

01:19:21.000 And then we came up with the idea of doing the genetics lab where one turns into a bat, one turns into a spider, one turns into a vegetable gremlin.

01:19:28.000 But what was great about working with Joe Dante, I mean, Joe is also a monster fan, you know, monster kid guy.

01:19:34.000 So we could communicate in that way.

01:19:37.000 You know, we would say, you know, it's like an invasion of the saucerman.

01:19:39.000 He knew what I was talking about.

01:19:40.000 Oh, okay.

01:19:41.000 Like Barry Sonnenfeld, who I did Men in Black with, if I said that to him.

01:19:44.000 He's going, I've never seen a science fiction movie.

01:19:47.000 He never saw any science fiction movie.

01:19:49.000 That's what he said.

01:19:49.000 He said, I went to see Alien, but I got too scared and left.

01:19:52.000 Oh, God.

01:19:53.000 And my crew on Men in Black were going, oh, my God, this is going to be a disaster.

01:19:58.000 And I was saying, you know, it could be a really good thing.

01:20:01.000 He could make a really unique film and not just base it on other stuff that he had seen.

01:20:06.000 And I think Men in Black is a really great film.

01:20:07.000 It is.

01:20:08.000 Yeah, it's really fun.

01:20:09.000 And he was terrific for it.

01:20:10.000 But at first it was a little scary.

01:20:12.000 But Joe...

01:20:13.000 But, you know, Joe was great, and he's really open to suggestions, you know.

01:20:17.000 And on the first Gremlins, they had a suggestion box.

01:20:20.000 It's like, what can we have the Gremlins do?

01:20:21.000 And people would put things in there.

01:20:23.000 So, you know, we would say, how about if we do this?

01:20:24.000 How about if we do that?

01:20:25.000 Okay.

01:20:26.000 You know, so it was a nice collaboration, you know, and that was fun.

01:20:31.000 So you have some fond memories.

01:20:33.000 Oh, no.

01:20:34.000 I mean, I have a lot of fond memories.

01:20:35.000 And mostly, it's in the pre-production time.

01:20:38.000 I mean, my crew.

01:20:39.000 It is hard, though, to not concentrate.

01:20:42.000 It's like you have to make a concerted effort to not concentrate on the annoyances and the negative parts.

01:20:46.000 Yeah.

01:20:46.000 And it is hard, especially when you get it every day.

01:20:49.000 Yeah.

01:20:49.000 But the hours, you know, people don't realize.

01:20:51.000 I mean, a normal film day is a 12-hour day.

01:20:53.000 Yeah.

01:20:53.000 But I, you know, for me, an average makeup is a three-and-a-half-hour makeup.

01:20:58.000 Then you have a 12-hour day.

01:20:59.000 Then you have an hour removal time.

01:21:02.000 So they're very long days.

01:21:04.000 I spent most of my career working 18, 15, 18-hour days, you know, and 20-hour days and sometimes all night, you know, and all day just to get this stuff done, you know.

01:21:13.000 And that's pre-Adderall.

01:21:15.000 Yeah.

01:21:16.000 Nobody had Adderall back then.

01:21:17.000 Yeah.

01:21:18.000 And I, you know, I'm surprised that I'm, you know, like I said, I'm going to be 69 in like a month.

01:21:25.000 And I'm surprised I'm still alive, first of all, you know, and able to walk and do stuff.

01:21:30.000 You know, when I think about the days of standing on my feet all day long and all the stuff...

01:21:36.000 Well, what about the chemicals?

01:21:37.000 That's the thing that I would think of.

01:21:39.000 It's a little scary, yeah.

01:21:40.000 You know, and we...

01:21:42.000 I mean, I... Because of my experience of, like I said, with the polyurethane foam and...

01:21:46.000 Yeah.

01:21:48.000 I know that, you know, this stuff is dangerous.

01:21:50.000 And I also had one time we...

01:21:52.000 The paint that I used to use to paint rubber, it's hard to get rubber, the paint to stick to rubber.

01:21:57.000 And I found out that on the Creature from the Black Lagoon, they made paint out of rubber cement and universal tinting colors and thinned it with benzene.

01:22:08.000 And it was bonded to rubber.

01:22:10.000 So I used to paint my mask in my bedroom with benzene, which is a carcinogen.

01:22:20.000 Oh, my God.

01:22:37.000 I don't know.

01:22:56.000 But yeah, it's a little scary, especially in the old days when we didn't know better.

01:23:00.000 Right.

01:23:01.000 Most people now are pretty safe with this stuff.

01:23:04.000 What was the last film you worked on?

01:23:06.000 Maleficent.

01:23:07.000 Not the one that just came out, but the first one.

01:23:10.000 And it was interesting.

01:23:15.000 It came about because a friend, Tony G, who is Angie's makeup artist and does her beauty makeup all the time, she worked with me first on Nutty Professor and then we did Life together and She was like the department head on the Grinch,

01:23:33.000 on the Grinch all Christmas and Planet of the Apes.

01:23:35.000 The Planet of the Apes that I did dealt with all the makeup artists.

01:23:41.000 And it was really great.

01:23:41.000 She's a great beauty makeup artist, but also a really great effects makeup person.

01:23:46.000 And she said to Angie, you know, when they were going to do Maleficent, she goes, you have to get Rick Baker.

01:23:50.000 He's the guy to do this, you know, and he's got a good aesthetic and he knows not to, when to put stuff on and when not to, you know, and And I said, boy, I don't...

01:24:00.000 Women are the hardest to make up, you know.

01:24:07.000 Especially if you're doing age makeup, you know.

01:24:09.000 I don't think any woman wants to look old, you know.

01:24:11.000 I've done some films where we do the most incredibly subtle little thing and then the actress doesn't want to come out of the trailer because they say they look like a burn victim, you know, and stuff, you know.

01:24:21.000 Or in tears.

01:24:23.000 And I said, you know, I... Angie wanted appliances.

01:24:27.000 She wanted rubber on her face.

01:24:28.000 And I was thinking, I don't think she should have.

01:24:31.000 I said, I think we can do it with the horns and maybe just ears.

01:24:35.000 But she had this very specific idea that she wanted these angular, sharp cheekbones.

01:24:41.000 So the very first thing I did, I said, well, let me just think about it and do a...

01:24:47.000 Design, what I think it should be.

01:24:49.000 I did this design, and then I met with Angie.

01:24:51.000 She came to my studio, which is now a storage facility.

01:24:59.000 And she brought a couple of her kids, and like a nanny kind of person, and paparazzi followed her.

01:25:04.000 We closed the gates, and we're talking, and she's telling me what she wants.

01:25:09.000 And one of her kids says to the nanny person, and he goes, I want a Coke.

01:25:13.000 And Angie was mid-sentence talking to me and she went, please?

01:25:18.000 And it really, I liked that she was teaching her kids manners, you know?

01:25:23.000 And that kind of sold me right there.

01:25:25.000 You know, it's like, okay, she's a mom too, you know?

01:25:27.000 And she is incredibly beautiful to look at, you know, and she's pretty persuasive in that respect, you know?

01:25:32.000 Yeah, they don't get any prettier.

01:25:33.000 Yeah.

01:25:34.000 They just get different.

01:25:35.000 Yeah.

01:25:35.000 Oh, wow.

01:25:36.000 Yeah.

01:25:37.000 Well, you did a great job in keeping that beautiful face, but adding just a little bit of weirdness, a little demonic weirdness with the cheeks.

01:25:43.000 Yeah.

01:25:44.000 And again, with the horns, I was saying, you know, maybe this is a really good case of doing CG horns and having them tracked onto her.

01:25:50.000 Because when you have something that's that much harder, well, we made it really lightweight.

01:25:55.000 It was incredibly lightweight.

01:25:56.000 And we spent a lot of time developing these lightweight horns that could be removable so she didn't have to wear them all the time.

01:26:01.000 So they removed at a point about this far off of her wig.

01:26:05.000 So I thought if they decide they don't like them, we can take them off and they'd be a good tracking for CG. But she wanted them and she wore them.

01:26:15.000 So we spent a lot of time trying to make those really light.

01:26:19.000 What about the wings?

01:26:19.000 The wings I didn't do.

01:26:22.000 I'm not sure even how they did that.

01:26:24.000 I didn't go to location on the filming.

01:26:26.000 Tony G made her up, and I had a really great Dutch guy who was a fan named Arian Titan who put the appliances on with Tony G and represented me on the set.

01:26:40.000 What is that picture with the American Werewolf with the hand sticking out there?

01:26:43.000 Mike Hill does these cool...

01:26:49.000 Like wax figures, but they're silicone.

01:26:51.000 So he did me, and he did me as a younger man, which was one of the worst ones he's done.

01:26:59.000 This was at the Academy for something.

01:27:00.000 But yeah, I gave him the molds actually from American Werewolf for the hands and some of the stuff.

01:27:07.000 But he does these great figures.

01:27:08.000 And unfortunately, and I think he even agrees, the one they did of me was one of the less successful ones.

01:27:15.000 I think it looks good.

01:27:16.000 Well, it looks good, but it looks a little grim, too.

01:27:19.000 A little bit.

01:27:19.000 Part of that was my fault, though.

01:27:21.000 He wanted to do me smiling, and I go, you know, when I'm working, I'm like, this is my concentration phase, you know?

01:27:26.000 But I sat for him, and he had life casts and everything.

01:27:30.000 But he does some brilliant stuff.

01:27:33.000 What ever happened to the original molds and all the original masks and stuff from American Werewolf in London, the original sculpture of the wolf?

01:27:40.000 Well, the sculpture gets destroyed basically when you make the mold.

01:27:43.000 I have one of the original heads still.

01:27:46.000 I mean, foam rubber is basically the sap of a rubber tree that you put chemicals in to make a cure, and you whip air into it to make it foam, and you put another chemical in to make it congeal, and then you bake it in the oven.

01:27:58.000 But because it's an organic material, it decomposes, it rots.

01:28:01.000 Oh, really?

01:28:02.000 Yeah.

01:28:02.000 And it will last through a film, but it usually doesn't last years.

01:28:06.000 But it does, the American werewolf, the stunt head, the one that I kill griffin with on the moors and go through the pig daily I have, and it's hard as a rock.

01:28:14.000 It turns to like, I call it like grain crackers, and if you touch it hard, it'll crumble into dust.

01:28:20.000 Oh, wow.

01:28:21.000 Mine's, it's all hard like that, but it's not, people don't touch it, you know.

01:28:26.000 So what does Pat McGee make these out of, the one that our wolf is?

01:28:29.000 I think it's probably slip rubber and polyurethane foam, and that lasts a lot longer, but it will decompose.

01:28:34.000 Oh, well, I'll have to start ordering another one.

01:28:36.000 Yeah.

01:28:37.000 Maybe if we get them to do the legs right.

01:28:39.000 If you keep it out of sunlight and keep it out, you know, I mean...

01:28:42.000 He doesn't get out of the studio.

01:28:43.000 Yeah, that's good.

01:28:44.000 He'll last a long time.

01:28:45.000 And I mean, I have Bob Burns, who this guy that I met when I was young, has some of my original masks that I made when I was 13. Oh, wow.

01:28:52.000 And they are still supple.

01:28:53.000 You can still move them.

01:28:54.000 I don't know how that rubber has lasted all that long.

01:28:57.000 That's pretty incredible.

01:28:58.000 A long time.

01:28:59.000 When anyone comes here, one of the first things they want to do is take a picture with the wolf.

01:29:03.000 That literally is like one of the first, like everybody and their brother has a photo like posing next to the wolf or pretend the wolf's biting their head or pretend they're having sex with the wolf.

01:29:13.000 Yes, a lot of that.

01:29:14.000 There's a lot of people from behind the wall.

01:29:16.000 I think I should get residuals.

01:29:17.000 You probably should get a little something.

01:29:19.000 A little piece.

01:29:19.000 A little taste.

01:29:20.000 Something.

01:29:21.000 Free Cokes.

01:29:22.000 Something.

01:29:23.000 Anything.

01:29:24.000 But that thing is...

01:29:27.000 If you had to go through all the most iconic...

01:29:32.000 Monsters in the history of films.

01:29:34.000 I mean, you're in the top two or three.

01:29:37.000 I mean, it's right there with all of them.

01:29:39.000 That werewolf was like, my God, I mean, it's absolutely one of the most iconic monsters ever.

01:29:45.000 Someone just on my Instagram just posted a picture of a tattoo, a beautiful tattoo of the werewolf.

01:29:52.000 Oh, yeah?

01:29:53.000 So many people have them.

01:29:54.000 One guy did a cover-up tattoo that was incredible, the werewolf.

01:29:58.000 But it's funny, I mean, I have the werewolf, I have Harry on people.

01:30:02.000 I've got the Grinch, you know.

01:30:04.000 And some of the stuff...

01:30:06.000 Harry and the Hendersons, Harry?

01:30:07.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:30:08.000 That's another one.

01:30:09.000 Oh, and that's one of the films I think still, I mean, when people ask me what my favorite one is, I say Harry because I can look at that film today and I think it holds up perfectly fine.

01:30:17.000 The only thing I think I would change is I would make his teeth a little more translucent, you know, in the ends.

01:30:22.000 But that was a challenging movie because he had to communicate just by his visual expressions and carry the movie, you know.

01:30:33.000 And I think he did, and I think it worked quite well.

01:30:36.000 Is there a movie that stands out as being the most frustrating, like the end result?

01:30:43.000 You know, I mean, they're all frustrating to a degree, you know.

01:30:48.000 I don't know if there's one particular one.

01:30:50.000 I mean, I did, and I don't consider this my film, I was approached...

01:30:56.000 By Bob Weinstein to do a werewolf movie called Cursed that Wes Craven was going to direct.

01:31:02.000 And I basically turned it down.

01:31:04.000 And there wasn't a lot of time.

01:31:06.000 And Bob used my own words against me apparently on a DVD of American Werewolf.

01:31:12.000 I said I'd love to have the opportunity to do a transformation again and do it.

01:31:16.000 We're good to go.

01:31:42.000 Of course, that's not the case.

01:31:44.000 No.

01:31:45.000 They say that.

01:31:46.000 Yeah, they say that, and it was like, change this, change that, change this, change that, and it was just like, you know.

01:31:51.000 You almost have to have a clause in the contract that if they do fuck with you at all, you can just leave and get paid.

01:31:56.000 I've done that in one contract.

01:32:01.000 But yeah, it turned out they started the film before they really had a script.

01:32:06.000 Oh, what a good idea.

01:32:07.000 Yeah, and it happens all the time.

01:32:09.000 And it was just a mess.

01:32:12.000 I haven't even heard of it.

01:32:13.000 First, yeah, what's good.

01:32:14.000 You didn't hear about it.

01:32:15.000 I'm surprised I'm even mentioning it because they shut the film down.

01:32:19.000 And I went, okay.

01:32:20.000 And I said, but we were doing some really cool transformation stuff.

01:32:23.000 And it wasn't quite done.

01:32:26.000 And I said, listen, if you ever think the film's going to pick up again, if you can keep a number of my people on for another month, we can have this transformation stuff.

01:32:36.000 We'll put it in a box.

01:32:37.000 It'll be ready to go.

01:32:38.000 I said, if they disperse now, it's going to be like starting again.

01:32:42.000 Because I won't necessarily get the same people, you know.

01:32:45.000 Right.

01:32:46.000 Just put everything in a box, ship it to us.

01:32:49.000 If we start up again, we'll figure it out.

01:32:52.000 They started up again.

01:32:53.000 I didn't do it.

01:32:54.000 I was on something else.

01:32:55.000 Someone else took over.

01:32:56.000 They changed everything that I made.

01:32:58.000 They didn't use a lot of what I made.

01:33:01.000 But the film has a single card opening credit that says Rick Baker on it.

01:33:04.000 And I spoke with Weinstein and go, I don't want credit for this film.

01:33:08.000 It's not my film.

01:33:09.000 This isn't my work anymore.

01:33:11.000 But it would help them to have you on it.

01:33:12.000 Yeah.

01:33:14.000 So, I mean, I found that frustrating.

01:33:16.000 But, you know, again...

01:33:19.000 I have no right to complain about this stuff.

01:33:21.000 They don't do a lot of monster movies anymore.

01:33:23.000 And the number of werewolf movies, you can kind of count them on one hand.

01:33:28.000 Right?

01:33:28.000 I mean, you've got The Howling.

01:33:29.000 One stretching hand.

01:33:30.000 One stretching hand.

01:33:31.000 I mean, you have The Howling.

01:33:32.000 Of course, you have American Werewolf.

01:33:34.000 You have the earlier films.

01:33:36.000 And then you have those.

01:33:38.000 I don't consider them werewolf movies.

01:33:40.000 What are the ones with the lady?

01:33:42.000 Underworld.

01:33:43.000 Kate Beckinsale.

01:33:43.000 Underworld, yeah.

01:33:44.000 Yeah, those are kind of...

01:33:45.000 But they're fun to watch Kate Beckinsale in a latex suit.

01:33:48.000 She's pretty fucking hot.

01:33:49.000 But they're just kind of whack.

01:33:51.000 The movies are kind of whack.

01:33:52.000 The vampires are whack.

01:33:53.000 It's like, I don't buy any of what you're selling.

01:33:56.000 I don't think these are real vampires.

01:33:57.000 I'm not scared.

01:33:58.000 I don't think that's a werewolf.

01:34:00.000 Get the fuck out of here.

01:34:01.000 Yeah, well, I'm more old school horror movie guy.

01:34:03.000 And I'm not a big slasher movie guy.

01:34:05.000 You know, I mean, again, I don't like...

01:34:08.000 I mean, I can't watch those fights that you're in.

01:34:12.000 UFC fights?

01:34:12.000 Oh.

01:34:13.000 Really?

01:34:13.000 I have one of my crew, Eddie Yang.

01:34:16.000 Shout out to Eddie.

01:34:17.000 Great guy, yeah.

01:34:18.000 Eddie, he studied with one of the Gracies.

01:34:21.000 Oh, cool.

01:34:22.000 And he was saying, hey, you've got to watch this, Rick.

01:34:25.000 And these guys hit each other in the face with an elbow.

01:34:27.000 And I said, no, it's not for me.

01:34:31.000 And people will send me, because they think I like this stuff, pictures.

01:34:34.000 Oh, look, fell down and cut my head.

01:34:36.000 I don't know.

01:34:37.000 Oh, God!

01:34:38.000 I pass out when I cut myself.

01:34:41.000 Really?

01:34:41.000 Yeah.

01:34:42.000 Do you?

01:34:42.000 I mean, fake gore is one thing, you know.

01:34:45.000 But I think it's bad that, you know, a movie, you know, when, you know, Halloween and Friday the 13th, and it just became, what's the most graphic way we can kill a teenager, you know?

01:34:57.000 Oh, right, right.

01:34:58.000 And people become, when you see, you know, a guy with a knife shoved in his eye and the people on you just like cheer.

01:35:05.000 Yeah.

01:35:06.000 Right.

01:35:06.000 That seems wrong to me, you know?

01:35:08.000 Yeah, the desensitization.

01:35:10.000 You know, you should be repulsed by this stuff.

01:35:12.000 Right.

01:35:12.000 And, I mean, I don't know.

01:35:17.000 But it's so – I mean, people would think it's funny and kind of ironic coming from someone like you who's made these insane monster films like American Werewolf in London.

01:35:25.000 We're just ripping guys' heads off and – Piccadilly circus.

01:35:27.000 But it's monster gore.

01:35:29.000 I understand.

01:35:29.000 And it's the same thing, like, you know, if it's a zombie killing, you know, you're killing a zombie, that's okay.

01:35:33.000 You know, that's not real, you know.

01:35:34.000 Right.

01:35:35.000 But just killing a person, another person killing a person in a graphic way, I'm not fond of, you know.

01:35:41.000 So I don't like, you know, I mean, I like, well, I call them monster movies more than anything else.

01:35:47.000 Right.

01:35:47.000 Me too.

01:35:48.000 Yeah.

01:35:48.000 And, you know, I mean, Charles Lawton and Quasimodo.

01:35:50.000 I mean, it's a brilliant film.

01:35:52.000 Yes.

01:35:53.000 It's a brilliant makeup.

01:35:54.000 Yeah.

01:35:55.000 1939. Right.

01:35:57.000 And, you know, it's a perfect makeup on a perfect actor, you know.

01:36:02.000 Charles Long was great in that movie and you feel for him, you know.

01:36:06.000 You feel for the Frankenstein's monster, you know.

01:36:08.000 Those movies just don't, they're so few and far between today.

01:36:12.000 Like I see a real Frankenstein type movie.

01:36:15.000 Were you fond of the Robert De Niro version of Frankenstein?

01:36:18.000 When I heard they were going to do that film, I thought, I've got to do this.

01:36:23.000 Like I said, I don't have an agent.

01:36:25.000 I have a lawyer that makes my deals that you have to.

01:36:28.000 They give you these contracts you don't understand.

01:36:32.000 I said, do you know anybody involved with this?

01:36:35.000 Can you put my name in the hat?

01:36:39.000 Yeah.

01:36:48.000 Yeah.

01:37:02.000 I thought, great that they have an actor, you know, but I was so disappointed when I saw it.

01:37:07.000 I didn't think what he did was amazing at all.

01:37:09.000 And the design, it was a lot of work, and I thought it was well done, but it didn't have the impact that the Karloff...

01:37:18.000 Right, yeah.

01:37:20.000 Impact's right expression.

01:37:21.000 Yeah, and...

01:37:23.000 And it's something – it's very much – when I was a kid, I did a makeup thinking, well, he's pieced together out of a bunch of different people.

01:37:30.000 Should be lots of scars and some different colors and things.

01:37:34.000 But you need a certain silhouette and something that just catches your eye.

01:37:41.000 And I didn't think that one did.

01:37:43.000 Pull up the image of Robert De Niro as Frankenstein.

01:37:48.000 And you should pull up Boris Karloff at the same time.

01:37:50.000 Yeah, the Boris Karloff one, I mean, that was the first.

01:37:53.000 And that's iconic.

01:37:54.000 Yeah, sure.

01:37:55.000 And again, the design, if you think about it, doesn't make sense.

01:37:58.000 You know, why does he have a flat head?

01:38:00.000 Right.

01:38:00.000 Why does he have bolts on his neck?

01:38:02.000 Yeah.

01:38:02.000 Well, that makes more sense because that's how they feed electricity.

01:38:07.000 That on the left, I think that's a test or something.

01:38:10.000 It looks different to me.

01:38:11.000 Mm-hmm.

01:38:14.000 Yeah.

01:38:14.000 And again, it does kind of make sense when you think of it as a man that's pieced together on different parts.

01:38:18.000 Right, but why are they piecing his face together like that?

01:38:20.000 I know.

01:38:21.000 Right, because Boris Karloff wasn't that pieced together.

01:38:24.000 No.

01:38:24.000 But the head was very bizarre, like the flat head.

01:38:27.000 Yeah, with a flat head.

01:38:28.000 And in the stuff you read that Jack Pierce said in press at the time, Frankenstein wasn't a trained surgeon.

01:38:37.000 He would take the easiest route to take the brain out of the top of his head by cutting the top of his head off, opening it up.

01:38:42.000 Like a box.

01:38:43.000 Yeah.

01:38:43.000 And putting a new brain in, closing it back up.

01:38:45.000 Like a box.

01:38:46.000 But it still wouldn't be flat.

01:38:49.000 Why is it flat?

01:38:50.000 Yeah.

01:38:50.000 You would put the skull back on it and maybe it would be an eighth of an inch shorter.

01:38:54.000 Well, how about Frankenstein's bride?

01:38:56.000 She was still hot.

01:38:57.000 I know with that nefertiti kind of hair.

01:38:58.000 Yeah, she had the crazy hair.

01:38:59.000 Yeah.

01:39:00.000 But she was still hot.

01:39:00.000 Is that the original Frankenstein?

01:39:02.000 Who's that guy in the upper left?

01:39:04.000 Yeah, that's the Edison Frankenstein.

01:39:06.000 Oh!

01:39:07.000 And again, he has kind of a flat head, so I think that might have...

01:39:10.000 He has some crazy hair.

01:39:10.000 He looks like Eddie Money.

01:39:11.000 Yeah.

01:39:12.000 She was shaking!

01:39:14.000 Doesn't it?

01:39:15.000 Yeah, he's kind of goofy looking, but...

01:39:17.000 But yeah, Karloff's face was just so perfect for it, you know, and...

01:39:22.000 I didn't know there was that many Frankensteins.

01:39:24.000 Oh, yeah.

01:39:24.000 So who's the other one?

01:39:25.000 What is that one?

01:39:26.000 On the bottom?

01:39:27.000 Is that Frank...

01:39:27.000 Well, there's Christopher Lee from Curse of Frankenstein.

01:39:30.000 Christopher Lee, right.

01:39:30.000 And it's Young Frankenstein.

01:39:33.000 Oh, Young Frankenstein.

01:39:35.000 Yeah.

01:39:35.000 And Herman Munster on the bottom.

01:39:36.000 Dun, dun, [...

01:39:39.000 Yeah.

01:39:39.000 I love the Munsters.

01:39:40.000 Yeah, the Munsters are cool.

01:39:41.000 Yeah.

01:39:41.000 But it is kind of funny that Herman Munster is just a ripoff of Frankenstein.

01:39:45.000 Well, he's supposed to be.

01:39:46.000 Well, he's supposed to be, though.

01:39:48.000 And, you know, I mean, the father's like Dracula.

01:39:50.000 Right.

01:39:50.000 Yeah, sure.

01:39:51.000 Yeah.

01:39:51.000 And Eddie's kind of like a little wolfman.

01:39:53.000 I remember TV Guide before this came on the air, but they talked about the new shows that were coming out.

01:40:01.000 This is in the 60s, and this is when the big monster craze happened.

01:40:05.000 And I was all over it.

01:40:07.000 Oh, there's going to be a Frankenstein guy on TV, you know?

01:40:10.000 And it was a great time for somebody like me, you know?

01:40:13.000 And it just soaked it all in.

01:40:16.000 What is the impediment?

01:40:17.000 Like, it seems like people love those movies when they come out.

01:40:21.000 Why don't they make more of those movies?

01:40:24.000 You know, well, first of all, the Wolfman that I did wasn't very successful.

01:40:28.000 Yeah.

01:40:28.000 It didn't make a lot of money.

01:40:29.000 But that was stopped in production at one point.

01:40:32.000 That was reshot.

01:40:33.000 They reshot a bunch of it, right?

01:40:34.000 Yeah, well, we came back for reshoots.

01:40:36.000 And again, this is the same thing.

01:40:38.000 The movie's called The Wolfman.

01:40:39.000 Right.

01:40:40.000 They call me up and go, we're going to do some reshoots in three weeks.

01:40:45.000 We want you to build suits for two stuntmen because we're going to do this quadruped running, which wasn't in the film originally.

01:40:52.000 Yeah.

01:40:52.000 And I said, in three weeks?

01:40:54.000 I said, remember when we did the Wolfman, we set up a shop in London that took like two months to set up, you know?

01:41:04.000 All the molds are somewhere in London.

01:41:05.000 I have no idea where they are.

01:41:07.000 You've got them in storage somewhere.

01:41:09.000 I said, we had found a crew.

01:41:10.000 We did the whole thing.

01:41:11.000 I go, there's no way I can do it in three weeks.

01:41:12.000 I said, what are we filming?

01:41:14.000 They said, well, the fight at the end in the house and all that.

01:41:16.000 And I said, well, the set's going to take a while to put back together.

01:41:19.000 Oh, you know, we started that three months ago.

01:41:21.000 Oh, great.

01:41:22.000 And I went, so you're giving me three weeks to make the Wolfman for this reshoot?

01:41:26.000 And you knew about it for three months?

01:41:29.000 You know, and it's like, you know, and if they were to call me even a week sooner, it was a time when everybody was out of work.

01:41:37.000 It was kind of a dry time.

01:41:38.000 But the, you know, week before they called me, a whole bunch of shows started.

01:41:42.000 Everybody was busy.

01:41:44.000 I couldn't find a crew.

01:41:45.000 And it was like, oh my God.

01:41:46.000 So how'd you wind up doing it?

01:41:48.000 I'm working day and night, and I got into my friends Dave and Lou Elsie again, and I found a couple guys that could kind of do some of this stuff, and we pulled it off.

01:41:58.000 I mean, seriously, I was working day and night, got on a plane, flew to London, got off the plane.

01:42:05.000 Made up Inicio.

01:42:06.000 In another trailer, we had people I hadn't worked with before making up the stunt double.

01:42:11.000 And it was like, we have to do this because Emily Blunt is going to be doing Gulliver's Travels.

01:42:16.000 She's only available for two days.

01:42:17.000 So we have to film now.

01:42:19.000 So I get off the plane, make up Inicio.

01:42:22.000 Stunt double's made up.

01:42:23.000 Everybody's looking good.

01:42:24.000 I walk out to where we're filming, and they're filming the stunt double in silhouette.

01:42:31.000 And this is, again, there's like video village where there's an army producer sitting in chairs looking at the monitor.

01:42:38.000 And I went over to him.

01:42:39.000 I said, okay, you have to explain this to me.

01:42:41.000 And they go, what, Rick?

01:42:41.000 And I go, why are we filming this fucking stunt double when Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Hugo Weaving are sitting in their trailer?

01:42:49.000 We only have Emily Blunt for two nights.

01:42:51.000 We're filming in the summer in England.

01:42:53.000 It gets dark at 10 o'clock.

01:42:55.000 It gets light at 4 o'clock in the morning.

01:42:57.000 It's going to be light in two hours.

01:42:59.000 This is one of the two days that we have Emily Blunt.

01:43:01.000 Why are we not filming her?

01:43:04.000 And they all looked at each other.

01:43:06.000 And they go, yeah, that...

01:43:07.000 Why are we not filming her?

01:43:09.000 Well, there must...

01:43:10.000 There must be a reason, you know.

01:43:12.000 And I was going, Yeah, the movie was cursed.

01:43:17.000 Pardon the pun.

01:43:20.000 Isn't John Landis' son involved in some sort of a remake of American Werewolf?

01:43:25.000 It's been announced that he was going to do that.

01:43:27.000 I don't know if it's ever going to happen.

01:43:28.000 Those things happen all the time.

01:43:30.000 Right, they announce it and then it just sort of...

01:43:31.000 Yeah, and Guillermo del Toro every other week, there's some film that he's going to make.

01:43:35.000 And some of them happen, some of them don't.

01:43:36.000 But he's a big fan of monster films, right?

01:43:39.000 He is, and he, again...

01:43:40.000 He was a part of the strain, wasn't he?

01:43:42.000 The film?

01:43:43.000 Yeah.

01:43:43.000 The television show?

01:43:59.000 I did Hellboy with him.

01:44:02.000 And I was in The Strain.

01:44:03.000 He has me killed by one of the Strigoi in The Strain.

01:44:07.000 The Strain starts off great.

01:44:08.000 The book does.

01:44:09.000 The book's really good for like three quarters of the way through.

01:44:13.000 And then it seems like they just kind of tried to finish it.

01:44:16.000 You know?

01:44:17.000 It's like very compelling in the beginning.

01:44:18.000 It's like an interesting storyline.

01:44:20.000 Like, okay, I see what's going on.

01:44:22.000 I'm not much of a reader.

01:44:23.000 I'm kind of dyslexic, so I have a really good time reading.

01:44:26.000 Do you listen to books on tape?

01:44:27.000 You know, it doesn't work for me either.

01:44:29.000 Oh, really?

01:44:29.000 Yeah.

01:44:30.000 I always say I have too many voices in my head as it is, you know.

01:44:33.000 But when I'm working, I mean, I have a real hard time.

01:44:37.000 You know, like if you do a red carpet thing and there's people talking on either side, it short circuits my brain.

01:44:42.000 Right.

01:44:42.000 And they ask me a question and I'm just hearing these other people and I... I like it that way.

01:45:02.000 Or paint, I listen to music.

01:45:03.000 But if I do stuff on the computer, I'll do a lot of designs on the computer and stuff, and I do some computer animation stuff for fun.

01:45:10.000 I can't have any other sounds and stuff.

01:45:14.000 Yeah, you just need to be focused.

01:45:15.000 My wife knows this very well.

01:45:17.000 If I'm trying to answer an email and she's talking to me, I just totally screw it up.

01:45:22.000 Your brain just doesn't work that well.

01:45:23.000 I did a book signing the other night, and...

01:45:28.000 If people are talking, when I'm signing my name, I asked the person how to spell their name, and then they were saying something else, and I screwed up their book, wrote their name wrong.

01:45:38.000 I've written my name wrong.

01:45:41.000 In the book, there's a picture, some drawings I did as a kid, and one I did in pen and ink of Dracula.

01:45:48.000 And I wanted to be, because it was pen and ink, and I couldn't erase it.

01:45:52.000 I got out of Famous Monsters to make sure I spelled Dracula right and very carefully was looking at the letters and writing in a pen and ink.

01:45:59.000 It says Drac-lila on it.

01:46:02.000 And I did a painting for my wife, this kind of romantic old painting.

01:46:10.000 It was for Valentine's Day, and I didn't know how to spell Valentine, so I looked it up.

01:46:15.000 And I very carefully painted Valentine Time.

01:46:21.000 Again, thank God that my career choice worked out because I couldn't work in an office, and I'm sure I'd be a homeless guy now.

01:46:29.000 I mean, my brain just doesn't work like a normal person.

01:46:32.000 Well, but the way it does work is wonderful.

01:46:34.000 The way your brain can focus on the things that you really love and you figure out how to get it to focus correctly.

01:46:40.000 Just shut the music off.

01:46:42.000 Just be alone.

01:46:43.000 Yeah.

01:46:44.000 It surprises me that I can do that, you know.

01:46:48.000 And I really get in the zone and I really focus on what I'm doing.

01:46:52.000 And to me, I mean, the funny thing is, I mean, my...

01:46:55.000 I think I started saying this before.

01:46:57.000 I was talking about not wanting to be a businessman and stuff.

01:46:59.000 And people are always surprised that I'm hands-on still.

01:47:03.000 A lot of other people who have, for example, Stan Winston, who did some great stuff and was great for the makeup industry.

01:47:12.000 And helped advance the state of the art.

01:47:16.000 Was a businessman more than a hands-on guy.

01:47:19.000 He hired people to do the work.

01:47:21.000 And he had a good eye and he would contribute stuff, but he rarely sculpted the stuff.

01:47:26.000 I tried to sculpt the stuff.

01:47:27.000 I designed the stuff.

01:47:28.000 And I'm always surprised when people go...

01:47:31.000 I paint and sculpt and do all these things.

01:47:33.000 And when people see one of my paintings, they go...

01:47:37.000 You can paint?

01:47:38.000 And it's like, there's a shock that I can paint.

01:47:40.000 And I go, you can sculpt?

01:47:44.000 There's a bronze gorilla at the LA Zoo that's a sculpture that I did.

01:47:48.000 And people go, you can sculpt?

01:47:51.000 I go, yeah, it's part of what I do.

01:47:53.000 Yeah, that's the whole thing, man.

01:47:54.000 Where do you think that werewolf came from?

01:47:55.000 Yeah.

01:47:57.000 But yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.

01:48:00.000 Do you think that there's ever a project that could come up that could tempt you into coming out of retirement?

01:48:06.000 No.

01:48:06.000 If somebody listens to you on this podcast and realizes that a lot of people have fucked with you while you worked and says, Rick, we could do something amazing.

01:48:14.000 Just one more.

01:48:16.000 You know, when I first retired, I would have said yes.

01:48:20.000 I mean, I was leaving it open that I said, well, I'll maybe do designs or consult, you know.

01:48:26.000 I'm having way too much fun doing my own thing.

01:48:28.000 You know, I mean, I still probably have the remains of my Halloween makeup.

01:48:32.000 You know, Halloween is a big thing in my family.

01:48:34.000 I'm so sorry they didn't send you a copy of the book.

01:48:36.000 It's got...

01:48:36.000 I'll get it.

01:48:37.000 Don't worry.

01:48:38.000 When I get it, I'll put it on Instagram.

01:48:40.000 Well, it's not so much about that.

01:48:41.000 I just think if you're a fan, I think you'll like it.

01:48:43.000 No, I am a fan.

01:48:43.000 I mean, I'm blown away by the response that I'm getting.

01:48:46.000 That's awesome.

01:48:46.000 From people.

01:48:47.000 I mean, they're loving it.

01:48:48.000 It's not a cheap book.

01:48:49.000 It's like 250 bucks, you know, but it weighs 17 pounds.

01:48:52.000 It's two volumes.

01:48:53.000 Oh, wow.

01:48:54.000 And with 2,000 pictures in it from...

01:48:57.000 Birth, basically, to my last film and beyond, you know, in my retirement.

01:49:02.000 But I don't know where I was going with that.

01:49:03.000 What did you ask me?

01:49:04.000 Well, we were talking about possibly coming out of retirement.

01:49:06.000 You were saying how much fun you're having right now.

01:49:08.000 No, I seriously doubt that anything would get me back.

01:49:12.000 Well, that's great to hear.

01:49:14.000 It's not great because I would love it if you did another movie, but it's great to hear that you're having such a good time.

01:49:19.000 Well, you know, one of the things I – when I watched Breaking Bad, and Bryan Cranston, you know, is such a great actor, but I said, you know, he would make a great Lon Chaney if they ever did a remake of Man of a Thousand Faces, which was the story of Lon Chaney.

01:49:35.000 He would be a perfect person, you know, besides being a great actor.

01:49:39.000 And my wife Sylvia and I went to a Comic-Con and went to a panel that they had on Breaking Bad, and we went back and I met Brian and Vince, and I said that to them, you know.

01:49:52.000 And I don't know, maybe if that happened, you know, I don't think anybody would go see that film now, or how many people even know who Lon Chaney is now, you know.

01:50:04.000 But to be able to recreate some of those makeups on an actor like that, you know, if it was the right people.

01:50:09.000 But again, I realized, you know, I mean, death became a more real thing to me when my parents died.

01:50:17.000 And I have friends that were younger than me that are dead now.

01:50:20.000 One of my favorite crew, one of my best guys just recently passed, 54 or something.

01:50:27.000 And I know there's an end in sight, and I know I've got arthritis, I've got cataracts.

01:50:35.000 There's a limited time that I have left to do the things I want to do, and I want to do what I want to do.

01:50:41.000 You know what I mean?

01:50:41.000 And I don't want the frustration and the stress.

01:50:45.000 Beautiful.

01:50:46.000 Beautiful.

01:50:46.000 Look, you already did it.

01:50:48.000 You made some of the most amazing movies ever.

01:50:51.000 I mean, you know, if I died today, which I hope I don't, I mean, I would be happy with what I've accomplished.

01:50:55.000 And that was another thing with the book.

01:50:56.000 I mean, when you see it laid out there in 800 pages, you know, saying, well, I've made a lot of shit in my time, you know?

01:51:06.000 I've made a lot of stuff, and I'm proud of what I made, you know?

01:51:09.000 I mean...

01:51:10.000 You do the best you can in the circumstances, and I fight.

01:51:14.000 One of the things that I realized when I read the book, too, which Cameron Publishing, who did the book, and Jonathan Rinsler, who wrote it, he interviewed me a lot, and he also went back to old articles and old things at the time and did a really nice job of weaving the story together.

01:51:32.000 But when I read it, I thought, God, you know what?

01:51:34.000 What a pain in the ass I am, but I fight for what I think is right.

01:51:38.000 For example, The Grinch, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

01:51:43.000 They wanted me to paint Jim Carrey green, and that was it.

01:51:48.000 And I was like, well, I mean, I think they wanted some hair, too.

01:51:51.000 But I'm like, come on.

01:51:52.000 It's not called How the Green Jim Carrey Stole Christmas.

01:51:55.000 It's How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

01:51:56.000 It should be a Grinch.

01:51:58.000 So I did like I do many times on myself, like I did in The Wolfman.

01:52:01.000 I make myself up, and I film some stuff, and I show them.

01:52:04.000 So I made myself up what I thought the Grinch would look like.

01:52:06.000 I filmed some stuff.

01:52:07.000 I cut it together.

01:52:08.000 I shouted to him and go, this is cooler than the Green Jim Carrey.

01:52:12.000 I'm sorry.

01:52:12.000 And I'm going, well, it doesn't look like Jim Carrey.

01:52:15.000 And I go, no, because it's on me.

01:52:16.000 And I go, but again, it's not the Green Jim Carrey.

01:52:20.000 And it seems to me it should be this character, not just, you know.

01:52:23.000 And I fought and fought and fought.

01:52:25.000 And I ended up doing a thing.

01:52:28.000 Where I decided to use the internet to help me get my point across.

01:52:34.000 So there was an internet movie site at the time that was popular and I knew the guy who ran it was a fan.

01:52:43.000 And I said, can you say that you saw this test that I did and that the guys at Universal were making a big mistake, you know, and just let the fans chime in so there was like thousands of responsible...

01:52:56.000 What the hell's wrong with these idiots that are running the movie studios?

01:52:59.000 I don't want to see a green Jim Carrey.

01:53:00.000 I want to see a Grinch.

01:53:01.000 So like two weeks before we started filming, they changed because of this.

01:53:06.000 And I only sent the copy of my test to Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.

01:53:12.000 And Ron's going...

01:53:14.000 How did this guy get hold of this copy of the tape?

01:53:17.000 And I go, I don't know.

01:53:18.000 I only sent it to you and Brian, you know?

01:53:21.000 And I didn't let him know what I did at the time.

01:53:23.000 Now I don't care because it came – I think the movie is better for it, you know?

01:53:27.000 Sure.

01:53:27.000 And in fact, even at an Oscar party, one of the executives at the studio came up to me and said, you know, thank you for doing The Grinch and for arguing with us because the decision was right.

01:53:42.000 It was definitely right.

01:53:43.000 You turned him into the Grinch.

01:53:44.000 It really was the Grinch.

01:53:46.000 But I thought I was going to get hit by a meteor or something.

01:53:48.000 This is not right.

01:53:49.000 An executive never tells you that stuff.

01:53:53.000 But again, I mean, I fight because it's my work.

01:53:56.000 And if my name's on it, I want it to be of a certain quality.

01:53:59.000 And it's not easy to get it done that way.

01:54:04.000 And it's part of the battle.

01:54:09.000 But it's also part of the frustration, you know?

01:54:11.000 So now, I only have to fight with myself, you know?

01:54:13.000 Beautiful.

01:54:14.000 Well, listen, man, thank you very much for coming here.

01:54:16.000 It's been an honor, and really, I was really looking forward to this.

01:54:19.000 It was a real treat for me to get to sit down and talk to you.

01:54:21.000 Oh, thank you so much.

01:54:22.000 I'm glad we do.

01:54:23.000 I figure anybody that has an American war wolf in their lobby can't be a bad guy, you know?

01:54:26.000 Thank you, Rick.

01:54:27.000 Thank you.

01:54:27.000 Appreciate it, man.

01:54:28.000 My pleasure.

01:54:29.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - November 05, 2019

Joe Rogan Experience #1377 - Rick Baker

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript