#1377 - Rick Baker

[0] Here we go, and three, two, one.

[1] Rick Baker, ladies and gentlemen, how are you, sir?

[2] Hey, I'm great, Joe.

[3] Everybody's been saying on my Instagram, I should do this podcast for ages.

[4] Well, I'm glad they listened, or you listened, rather.

[5] I've been a fan of years forever, man. I was a huge Star Wars fan when I was a kid, and you inspired me. When I was young, I really wanted to be a makeup artist.

[6] I wanted to do special effects and the kind of stuff that you do.

[7] I had no idea.

[8] Yeah, man. I think it was probably Star Wars that kicked it off from me, because I, like many kids, a lot of people today, you know, were so removed with first VHS and then DVDs and laser discs and now streaming.

[9] It's so easy to watch movies, but when Star Wars came out, we would go see it over and over and over again.

[10] It was like a little contest between a lot of the kids that I went to school with.

[11] I think I saw it 13 times while it was out in the movie theater, but I became fascinated.

[12] I've always been fascinated with comic books.

[13] I always wanted to be a comic book illustrator, and I always loved, like, uh, like, those fantasy novels, like creepy and eerie, you know, those, uh, those graphic novels, but I really became fascinated with special effects and, um, particularly makeup after your work.

[14] Uh, well, you know, it's kind of the same thing for me. I mean, I, 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, and there was always the monster movies on Saturdays.

[15] you know, and her Sundays, and that just stuff just hit a chord with me, and I just said, I have to do this, you know.

[16] When did you, what was the first thing that you did?

[17] First ever makeup kind of thing I did?

[18] Well, I mean, you know, I was, I'm an only child.

[19] My mom wasn't supposed to have kids because she had a bad heart and stuff, and, and, but they wanted children.

[20] And, but I was very shy.

[21] I stayed in my bedroom.

[22] I couldn't talk to an adult and stuff like that.

[23] The very first thing, you know, I got interested in makeup, and I got some just white grease paint in black grease paint and smeared it on my face and just with a layer of grease paint on my face when I was looking in the mirror it wasn't a little Ricky Baker anymore and I could do things that I couldn't do without this shit smeared on my face and it just it helped me overcome my shyness but I mean it started with that but I wanted to do something more you know so I ended up making I made my first mask I think when I was 13 and it was a curse of Frankenstein and I did that one mainly because I thought I could copy that one and make it look close enough because it's it's it's it there's some crudeness to that makeup I've actually it first didn't like it but I like it now you know I mean it's when you find out how the film industry works and poor Philip Leakey who did that makeup had like a week to prep you know and no money so it I forgive some of the faults with it well it's great when you stop and think about the earliest versions of makeup in movies like special effects style makeup in movies you know you go back to like nosferado was probably one of the very earliest right i mean they really didn't have anything to go with there wasn't anything to copy yeah they kind of had to make it up yeah and i mean the thing is the nasferatu is such a i mean it's a great film it's great film still to this day yeah and and and and the look you know i mean it shouldn't work by all you know it's like a big hook nose you know and like you know but it works great and and um but you Yeah, and same thing.

[24] I mean, Lon Cheney had nothing to work with, you know, spirit gum and cotton, and he did, to this day, some of the, still my favorite makeups and some of the best makeups.

[25] And I think the limitations in a lot of ways made the makeups work better.

[26] You know, 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.

[27] It's more like about how much can you pile on someone's face, you know, but sometimes the most effective makeups are just the, teeny is a little bit of things that you do and let a lot of the humanity show through.

[28] Like Lon Cheney and Phantom of the Opera?

[29] Great makeup.

[30] Yeah.

[31] That's a terrific.

[32] And Cheney was just brilliant.

[33] You know, I'm great at making scary faces.

[34] That's how I learned to make scary faces watching Cheney movie.

[35] Yeah, and he's another one.

[36] There was not much for him to go on.

[37] It wasn't, he was kind of like a pioneer.

[38] Yeah, for sure.

[39] And I mean, again, like I said, still some of my favorite makeups.

[40] That and, you know, Jack Pierce's, Frankenstein's monster.

[41] Again, crude materials, you know, and, you know, poor Boris Karloff, what he had to endure.

[42] I mean, that isn't, none of the makeups he did on Boris were comfortable, you know, with cotton and spirit gum and collodian, collodian.

[43] I don't know if you know, you might know what colline is because of your fight background kind of stuff, but it's a plastic.

[44] They used to use it to close up boxers' wounds and stuff.

[45] It's like kind of this liquid plastic, but it smells horrible.

[46] and, you know, to be working around someone's eyes with his fumes of stuff.

[47] And, yeah, I mean, he had to put up with a lot.

[48] So it's kind of like a glue?

[49] Yeah, it's kind of a liquidy, plastic -y stuff.

[50] Can you pull up a video of Nosferado?

[51] What year was that?

[52] 20, I don't know what.

[53] 1922?

[54] That's crazy.

[55] Yeah.

[56] You stop and think about that, you know, film itself had only been how old then?

[57] Yeah, not very.

[58] Not very.

[59] You know, but yeah.

[60] See, you can get a video of it.

[61] Yeah.

[62] His, just the whole.

[63] whole thing about the way he moved, like everything.

[64] It was so creepy and interesting.

[65] Well, in the whole film, I mean, just beautifully shot.

[66] I mean, so many of the silent films, I mean, the photography is so incredible, you know.

[67] I mean, I wonder how what they did with the fingers.

[68] Like, how did they get his fingers?

[69] Well, those, I think those are just his hands at this point, you know.

[70] I mean, later, I mean, in like the John Baramore, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you know, I remember reading a famous monsters, which was, again, like my Bible, you know.

[71] Right.

[72] Did you get famous monsters at all?

[73] Oh, yeah, yeah, I did.

[74] Oh, yeah, you said, creepy, hairy and all that.

[75] Sure.

[76] You know, they said, you know, John Baramore did the whole transformation without makeup, you know, and it's not true.

[77] You know, he's got finger extensions on, he's kind of like a pointed back of a head, you know, and stuff.

[78] But, yeah, it's, Nasra, too.

[79] Brilliant.

[80] So what do they do for his ears, do you know?

[81] Well, I don't sure what they're made out of.

[82] Same with the bald head.

[83] I mean, I know rubber existed then.

[84] I mean, you can kind of see.

[85] I mean, he's got, I think it's probably just.

[86] like a slip rubber, which is like what Halloween masks are made out of ears and bald head and nose.

[87] Yeah, some sort of prosthetic nose, right?

[88] Yeah, and those big pointy teeth.

[89] But again, I mean, if you really kind of analyze it and look at it, you think this is stupid, it'll never work, you know, but it works great.

[90] And I also think it's because Max Shrek was great.

[91] You know, he does some really cool things with his hands and stuff.

[92] 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.

[93] I'd freak out.

[94] I'd freak out.

[95] If I saw somebody in my house anyway.

[96] Yeah, someone's smiling with free time.

[97] Yeah.

[98] Yeah, it's just, it's such an interesting time capsule when you look at these films, and you look at something like Nosferado from 1920, and then you look at what we're doing today with CGI in a lot of ways, I mean, I'm not a fan of CGI.

[99] I'm not a fan of it in terms of, like, for monsters.

[100] It just seems, everything seems fake.

[101] The suspension of disbelief is higher than, you.

[102] And if I'm like, what you did with American Werewolf in London, what one of the more brilliant things about it was the special effects and the makeup were fantastic, but there were these really quick scenes.

[103] It was like you saw it for a second and it was burned into your eyes and then it vanished.

[104] 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.

[105] And I hardly even want to show it then, you know.

[106] Right.

[107] And what was great about Werewolf working on that film with John Landis was he, you know, you.

[108] you know, said, you're the expert, I want a four -legged hound from hell.

[109] I wanted to make a biped war wolf, you know, we argued about it.

[110] And it was basically, you know, he wins.

[111] He's the director, you know, but he says, four -legged hound from hell, make it.

[112] And I did.

[113] I mean, the first sculpture was what the final thing became.

[114] Same with everything in it, the Nazi demons, all that stuff.

[115] You know, cut to, you know, like when I did the wolfman, I mean, it did thousands of designs.

[116] And, you know, all these producers are going, well, maybe if you do one between this and that and do one between this and that, or maybe this poor should be over here, you know.

[117] And that kind of stuff just is so soul -sucking, you know.

[118] And it's one of the reasons I retired, you know, I just – but to this day, I mean, like, on the cover of my book is the sculpture from – of one of the Nazi demons from American Warwolf.

[119] And a number of people said this is, like, one of the greatest designs ever, you know, and this kind of stuff.

[120] And it's people who are production designers and stuff.

[121] And it was – it's pure Rick Baker without interference.

[122] You know, and that's what I thought the industry would be, you know, which it isn't for the most part.

[123] Well, it's just everybody wants to, it's the same with comedy.

[124] It's the same with, it seems like it's the same with everything.

[125] Everybody wants to put their greasy little fingerprints on it and say that's, the reason why his nose is like that was me. Yeah.

[126] I told Rick Baker, you don't know what you're doing.

[127] Yeah.

[128] You got to make the nose wider.

[129] Yeah, no, I know.

[130] Yeah, that's, oh.

[131] And it's, you know, it's watered down the design.

[132] Like I said, it's soul -sucking.

[133] I mean, and when you know, you know, sculptures take a long time.

[134] And, you know, we sculpt every pore and every wrinkle and everything.

[135] You know, I have, like, magnifying glasses I wear when I'm doing this.

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

[137] Well, they're disturbing your artistic vision.

[138] It's just, it's, I mean, when someone contributes money and they're the ones who get to decide whether the things get made or not made, you know, just they think they're artistic as well.

[139] Yeah.

[140] It becomes a disaster.

[141] And it's the thing, you know, I mean, when you see a movie or a TV show and I don't.

[142] Now, there's 47 producers on everything thing.

[143] You know, it used to be, they were show people.

[144] And it was a guy, you know, for example, on Grimlins, too.

[145] Mike Fennell, who was the producer, who came from Roger Corman School of Filmming, you know, so he really checks every penny.

[146] But he was a guy I could go to and he would look at everything and go, why is it, why is this, why are you buying this?

[147] And you'd explain it to him.

[148] And you go, okay, that makes sense.

[149] And there'd be a person you could talk to and you could get in.

[150] answer from.

[151] Now there's, like I said, 47 producers and nobody will commit to anything, you know?

[152] It drove me crazy.

[153] I mean, 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 and for something I would do for free, you know, but it got to the point where I was just becoming a bitter old man because of all this.

[154] And I just said, I have to retire and I want to make things for myself, well, I still can't.

[155] You know, I'm almost 69 years old and, you know, having trouble with joints and vision and all kinds of stuff, you know, and I, 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, you know, so it's time to just, you know, make my own thing.

[156] And I'm loving it, you know.

[157] Like, what kind of stuff are you doing now?

[158] Oh, I do all kinds of stuff.

[159] I mean, I still do makeups, you know, for fun.

[160] Um, I've, I actually cast up some of my, I saved a lot of the molds.

[161] I cast up some of the old Star Wars stuff out of the molds and stuff.

[162] And I do animations.

[163] I make models.

[164] I make little movies.

[165] But you're just doing it purely for the joy of it now.

[166] Painting and sculpting.

[167] It's just like it was when I was a kid.

[168] Oh, that's awesome.

[169] My bedroom was my workshop.

[170] You know, I, and, you know, I'm surprised I'm still alive.

[171] You know, I had a bunch of toxic chemicals in the same room that I slept, you know.

[172] And, uh, but it's, you know, it's what I've done since I was a kid is how I have fun.

[173] It's how I entertain myself, you know, and, and like I said, on my Instagram, everybody's going, you know, I thought you retired.

[174] And I said, I retired from the film industry.

[175] I didn't retire from being a creative guy.

[176] I mean, this is who I am.

[177] This is what I do.

[178] It's how I have fun.

[179] That's awesome.

[180] You know, as much as the process was probably annoying with the wolf man, the end result was cool.

[181] I really loved how you did it and you made it old school.

[182] It was kind of like, almost like the original wolf man. but, like, you know, redone.

[183] Yeah, well, I was, you know, I'm a fan, you know, and, you know, and I think, I think that too, I mean, people who love what they're doing and come up from a fanboy point of view, you know, it's, and it's something I think the producers don't understand because they're all about making as much money as they can, and they think everybody's trying to cheat them out of money and stuff, you know, it's like, there's so many times, I would say, you know, why did you hire me, you know, if you don't, you're not letting me do what I do.

[184] Right.

[185] And it's like, well, you're the best.

[186] And I go, well, let me do it.

[187] Would I do?

[188] Let me be the best.

[189] Have some faith.

[190] You know, I mean, you're making it so I can't.

[191] And the Wolfman was a case like that.

[192] I mean, it was a battle through the whole thing.

[193] And that was one of these things with thousands of designs and changed this one little thing.

[194] But I thought that, you know, in the end, the original director left right before we started filming.

[195] They brought somebody else in.

[196] And I just said, we don't have an approved design.

[197] I'm making what I thought I should make seven months ago.

[198] I did a test on myself that basically looked like that.

[199] We don't have time to screw around.

[200] The new director isn't going to have a choice.

[201] which I don't think he was really happy about, but in the end, I mean, I thought, you know, that the movie was the closest thing to an old school horror movie in a long time.

[202] It was, but it also had the feel like a lot of people fucked with it.

[203] It felt like it was missing an individual or singular vision.

[204] Well, it's every movie now.

[205] God, that's so frustrating to hear.

[206] Well, I think Tarantino still pulls it off.

[207] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[208] No, I mean, he's one of the rare guys that still, you watch a movie and go, Jesus Christ, like the shit that he gets away with, that's a Tarantino movie.

[209] Like, once upon a time in Hollywood.

[210] That is a Tarantino movie.

[211] Like if you told, if I saw that movie and you said, who made that movie?

[212] I'd be fucking Tarantino made that movie.

[213] If they didn't, they're going to jail.

[214] He gets away with so much and his movies seem like his movies.

[215] And he's a fan boy.

[216] You know what I mean?

[217] He knows movies really well.

[218] And no, I mean, thank God for him.

[219] You know, I mean, I really enjoy his films.

[220] I met Quentin.

[221] I was at a film festival in Siege's Spain.

[222] It's a science fiction fantasy film festival.

[223] as a guest, and I was there.

[224] That's where I met Peter Jackson.

[225] We actually sat next to me, he ended screening, and we became friends, and he had his movie Brain Dead.

[226] Have you ever seen that?

[227] No. Oh, it's really good.

[228] It's really fun.

[229] It's really gory, but funny, gory, and really clever.

[230] But anyways.

[231] When did he make that?

[232] Well, this was like in the 90s or something, I guess.

[233] I'm real bad with dates.

[234] But anyways, we were sitting and talking, and Freddie Francis, who was.

[235] a director in a director of photography did a lot of hammer movies and Stuart Freiborne was there and we're sitting in this thing and there was this big kind of goofy kid walking around you know and I thought he was just like a fan so I said come on over and sit down with us you know and we started talking and go what are you doing here and you know he was obviously like an American and he goes I have a film here you know and it was reservoir dogs and we went to see it and I actually left in the scene where they're torturing the cop it's funny people think I like gory stuff you know want, because I've done it in films, but real stuff.

[236] And if it's really intensely done on a film like that was, I mean, I thought he was going to light this guy on fire, where he's got the cop in a chair at one point.

[237] And I just said, I can't, I don't want to see this.

[238] So I left, and so did Wes Craven.

[239] Wow.

[240] Yeah, and we went, and he got so jazzed by that, you know.

[241] That he got you guys to get out of it.

[242] West Craven couldn't take my movie.

[243] And Rick Baker couldn't take my movie.

[244] It's so cool.

[245] You know, that's awesome.

[246] And that was a great thing.

[247] I mean, like I said, as was my introduction to Peter, Peter Jackson, and we became fast friends.

[248] We kind of had the same background.

[249] And it's like what you said to me about wanting to be a makeup artist and reading those things.

[250] I know so many people like that.

[251] You know, Danny Elfman said that to me. Oh, really?

[252] Yeah.

[253] John Fogarty likes that.

[254] John Fogarty?

[255] Yeah, you know, I don't know if they wanted to be makeup artists, but he really liked that stuff, you know.

[256] a slash, you know, a lot of these different people, you know, and they went into rock and roll instead of that, you know.

[257] But, you know, I never veered off that path.

[258] I mean, from age 10, this is what I wanted to do.

[259] And I didn't have a plan B. And fortunately, it worked because I grew up very lower middle class.

[260] I didn't know anybody in the film industry, you know.

[261] And when I finally met somebody, I was 13.

[262] and Universal Studios just started their tour.

[263] And I talked my parents.

[264] They said, you know, you're going to be a teenager.

[265] It's a special birthday.

[266] You know, what can we do?

[267] You know, and I said, can we go to Universal on the Universal Tour?

[268] You know, 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, you know.

[269] But on the way, I knew that are you familiar with Don Post masks?

[270] The Don Post Studios, they did the Universal Classic Monster masks.

[271] They were in the back of famous monsters.

[272] and stuff.

[273] Okay.

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

[275] But everybody, every kid, monster kid coveted those masks, you know.

[276] And his studio was in Burbank near Universal and I had seen him on TV talking about how he was buying Universal.

[277] 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.

[278] And they were very gracious.

[279] You know, my dad said, you know, my son, Ricky likes monsters, he makes masks, and we're in close by, can you come by?

[280] And they said, sure, you know, gave me the whole tour.

[281] Wow.

[282] Yeah.

[283] And on the wall in Don Poe Studios was a picture of Bob Burns, who I'd read about in my monster magazines.

[284] He's a collector, and he's done some makeup.

[285] He had a mummy suit and a gorilla suit that he made, and it had his phone number, and I wrote it down.

[286] And I, again, being, I was still pretty shy, and I got my dad to call.

[287] this guy who I read about in Monster magazines and he was the first guy ever met anywhere related to the industry and again very Bob and Kathy you know welcome me into their home he told me you know showed me how to do a scar cut out of martians wax and where to get the stuff at Max Factor and and it just was like one of the first people to show me stuff and he worked at the local CBS station and introduced me to the news the guy who did the newsmen, the makeup artist who made up the newscasters.

[288] And he was like blown away by the stuff that I did.

[289] He goes, I'm going to take you to the makeup union.

[290] And I was like 15 at this point.

[291] And so I went to the makeup union with a box full of heads and masks and pictures of makeups I did.

[292] Again, naive thinking that they were going to say, start tomorrow, you know, get a job.

[293] And the business rep of the union said, you know, give up, kid.

[294] You're never going to get in.

[295] you know, that you have to be born into the industry.

[296] It was a real, at that time, at that time, there was a lot of nepotism.

[297] I mean, there's still not.

[298] That bad?

[299] Yeah.

[300] 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.

[301] You're not going to, he said, first of all, you have to be 21 to serve an apprenticeship.

[302] Elvis 15.

[303] He said, there's only a few apprenticeships and they're going to go to a Westmore or to a bow or a, a. you know, somebody who was a name makeup artist, or a relative of one of those.

[304] 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.

[305] And it was kind of like...

[306] Trying to crush your dreams.

[307] Well, he kind of, it kind of did, but it also was like, you know what?

[308] Fuck you.

[309] I'm going to show you.

[310] And I did.

[311] You definitely did.

[312] I mean, boy, was he wrong.

[313] Yeah.

[314] It turned out to be the greatest of all time.

[315] Well, I don't know about that.

[316] I think Dick Smith is the greatest of all time.

[317] Well, you have to think that.

[318] I can't believe you didn't get the book.

[319] I'm sorry.

[320] I'm going to make sure you get it.

[321] Well, there's a picture of me. Wow.

[322] That was from a newspaper article in my local newspaper when I think I was a sophomore in high school.

[323] And that was the first time they called me Rick Baker Monster Maker.

[324] Yeah, that was.

[325] That's from high school?

[326] That was, yeah.

[327] I was think I was the third.

[328] No, I must have been like 14 or 15 or 16, something like that.

[329] Wow, man, you were committed to the path.

[330] Oh, I mean, my bedroom had, it was all masks.

[331] And, you know, did you ever do the Aurora model kits?

[332] Yes, it did, yeah.

[333] Yeah, I mean, that was one of the big regrets that when I got married, I thought, well, I got to grow up.

[334] Yeah, you know, which I got rid of the models.

[335] And I've regretted it ever since.

[336] Those were so cool.

[337] You could paint them.

[338] Oh, yeah.

[339] I remember those.

[340] I think I had a creature from the Black Lagoon one.

[341] Did they make a creature from the Black Lagoon one?

[342] Yeah.

[343] That was an interesting film, right?

[344] 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.

[345] That was one of the cooler makeup works for the time.

[346] It still is.

[347] It's still one of the best men in the suit.

[348] Yeah.

[349] Really well done.

[350] Pull that up, Jamie.

[351] Creature from the Black Agoon.

[352] That was like, what was it, 50s?

[353] Yeah.

[354] And that was the Westmore regime, Jack Pierce, who did Frankenstein, The Wolfman, all the classic stuff, was used old school techniques during the time when other people were doing foam rubber.

[355] And a new regime came in Universal and all of a sudden Jack got a pink slip.

[356] You know, you're out.

[357] You know, these movies.

[358] Yeah, very cool.

[359] Yeah, go with the larger one of the lower left corner, Jamie, where you see the whole body.

[360] Yeah.

[361] I mean, what a cool design.

[362] It is.

[363] And it was designed by a woman.

[364] Millicent Patrick, who...

[365] She nailed it.

[366] She did, but she didn't get a lot of...

[367] I mean, Bud Westmore's regime got the credit for it.

[368] But when the movie came out...

[369] Look at that.

[370] Yeah.

[371] When some publicist found out that a woman designed it, it was...

[372] They did a whole kind of beauty in the beast campaign.

[373] And apparently Bud Westmore was furious.

[374] You know, he goes, it's my work.

[375] It's, you know.

[376] And he was famous for posing with other people's stuff.

[377] You know, a very fine sculptor named Chris Mueller sculpted the creature's head anyway.

[378] ways.

[379] And I think he did the abdomen in some of the parts.

[380] And he also sculpted the Melanian Mutant from this island earth, you know, the big brown.

[381] Oh, okay.

[382] Yeah.

[383] And there's a, there's some pictures of Bud Westmore holding a really inappropriate sculpture tool next to the sculptures.

[384] And from what I heard, he would, whenever the publicist would come to take pictures, he would give everybody a day off or the afternoon off, and then he would go up to the lab and pose with that stuff.

[385] Oh, Christ.

[386] Yeah.

[387] I hate hearing stores with that.

[388] It's so disappointing.

[389] You know, when you want to think that all these people who take credit for all that work, they did the work.

[390] Yeah, and I tried to do that.

[391] And it's funny because, you know, so many people, I mean, I never wanted to be businessman, you know, and I never even thought about that aspect of it, you know, that I'd have to have employees and all that, you know.

[392] Me neither.

[393] And I hated that part.

[394] And, I mean, that was something I didn't care for, you know, and I resisted being a businessman.

[395] I didn't have, I wasn't listed anywhere.

[396] My company wasn't listed.

[397] I didn't have a letterhead.

[398] I didn't have business car.

[399] how the hell I didn't have an agent you know 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 you know but yeah it's fortunately it all worked out for me like I said certainly did what was your first gig like what was the first first professional gig that you got where it was like holy shit I'm getting paid to do makeup well I mean the first time I ever got paid actually did I think I did a a makeup for a stage actor who wanted to be old, and I charged him $75, which was, you know, more money than I ever gotten from anything before.

[400] You just came up with a number in your hat?

[401] Yeah, well, I kind of somehow figured it out, you know, but anyways, I did these pieces for him, and he lived off that Pasadena Freeway, that one that has the weird right -angled off -ramps.

[402] You know, and my dad drove me there because they couldn't, and I didn't drive at the time.

[403] And he actually had a makeup kit and had some hair pieces in it and a bunch of stuff.

[404] And he said, you know, I will trade you this.

[405] Instead of giving you $75, I'll give you this makeup case and with full of this stuff.

[406] And I was like, yeah, that's really cool.

[407] You know, but my dad wanted to teach me, you know, responsibilities and stuff.

[408] And this was around the time I think I was like 16 and was going to try to drive.

[409] and he goes, my insurance is going to go up.

[410] 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.

[411] It's like, oh, man, I really want this makeup kit.

[412] But, I mean, I had amazing parents who, I mean, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for them.

[413] I mean, they supported me in my crazy decision to make monsters for a living.

[414] Well, they must have been so happy when it paid off, though.

[415] Yeah, I was glad that they lived long enough to see that.

[416] and I got to bring my parents to the Oscars a few times.

[417] Oh, wow.

[418] Yeah, and, you know, they were very proud.

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

[420] Oh, those people.

[421] But, you know, my dad basically never grew up, and I knew I never was going to, you know.

[422] What would your dad?

[423] What did he do for living?

[424] Well, he did a bunch of different things.

[425] He was a high school dropout because he had to, he had to.

[426] help his family, his mother and father, you know, paid bills.

[427] And he had a variety of not very good jobs.

[428] He worked at Sears as a salesman.

[429] He drove a truck.

[430] He did stuff.

[431] But he was always, he was very creative and it was kind of held down in his lifetime.

[432] You know, don't do that.

[433] You can't, you know, do something.

[434] He can make a living out.

[435] And because of that, I benefited from that.

[436] He supported the creativity.

[437] And when I, I think I was a sophomore in high school, he decided he wanted to try to make a living as an artist.

[438] And we lived on my mom's bank teller salary for a number of years.

[439] He hardly made any money at all.

[440] But he was happy, you know.

[441] And he, because, I mean, like I said, he supported my creativity.

[442] And he was really my first teacher.

[443] He showed me what you could do with paint.

[444] He knew a little bit about sculpture, you know.

[445] He was also a fan of monster movies, you know, and he saw, you know, the Fred of March, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it came out, you you know, and told me all about it.

[446] And that was a movie that they didn't have on TV that I really wanted to see, you know.

[447] And he said, when he saw it in the theaters, you know, he would hide his eyes or hide by the seat, you know, and I so wanted to see that.

[448] And he also said, you know, War of the Worlds, the George Powell.

[449] Oh, yeah.

[450] You know, that was so cool.

[451] And the sound effects were great.

[452] And, you know, that was never on either.

[453] And when I was in the seventh grade, I think it was, I decided to get on the student council for the main reason.

[454] this was my plan, was I suggested that we could raise money for the school by showing movies after school.

[455] We could rent 16 millimeter movies and show them and charge admission.

[456] And I basically just went through all the movies I hadn't seen that I wanted to see and got those, you know.

[457] And there were maybe four or five people that showed up to see him, but I was happy.

[458] Oh, that's awesome.

[459] What was the first film that you did special effects for?

[460] First film was a film called The Octo Man. and it's kind of a cult classic because it's such a crappy movie, you know.

[461] It was shot in 10 days at Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park.

[462] What year was this?

[463] I graduated from high school in 1969, and I went to two years to a junior college, 69, 79, 70, 71, I guess it was.

[464] So you went from that to Star Wars only like five or six years later, right?

[465] Yeah, something like that.

[466] That's crazy.

[467] Yeah, and King Kong and all that.

[468] That's right, yeah.

[469] Played, there's the Octo Man. Yachtoman.

[470] I didn't design it.

[471] Oh, my goodness.

[472] Look at that thing.

[473] Yeah.

[474] But, I mean, this was, I was a full -time student.

[475] I had six weeks and, like, I think, $1 ,000 to make this suit.

[476] And so I, after school, and I got my friend, the very first job I ever had.

[477] Actually, this, and this, again, happened because of my dad.

[478] When he was a truck driver, delivering plumbing supplies, he went to the wrong building and the building he went into was called Clokey Productions and they made Gumby and Davy and Goliath, stop motion animation which I did stop motion as well, big Ray Harryhausen fan and for some reason I grew up in Covina which is east of LA like 30 or 40 miles and there wasn't anything film related out there but for some reason Clokey's was out there I think because it was cheaper rent and he I was my On my quarter a week allowance, when I found a place I could buy rubber, it was like $8, almost $9 for a quarter rubber.

[479] And, you know, it took me a lot of weeks and a lot of mow lawns and a lot of stuff to save up that money.

[480] And I said, I need a, I need a job.

[481] So I didn't have a car.

[482] We only had one car in the family.

[483] And, you know, I went to any place I could walk to supermarkets, you know, busboys, all this stuff.

[484] Nobody wanted me. And my dad said, oh, I remember this place and did stop motion and you'd stop motion, you know, maybe.

[485] So I went there with my box of stuff, you know, and it was summer vacation between my junior and senior year of high school.

[486] And they said, start tomorrow, got paid minimum wage, which I think was, you know, $1 .25 or something at the time.

[487] But that place was like a magnet for any weird kid or any kind.

[488] It was like a stop motion fan.

[489] Any stop motion person would show up there at one point or another.

[490] And I met this guy named Doug Bezwick, who was a few years older than me. And we became, again, fast friends.

[491] had famous monsters.

[492] He was a Ray Harrihaus and fan.

[493] And Doug, when I did this Octaman film, Doug had a little workshop, and we did it in his workshop and we did it together.

[494] Wow.

[495] 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.

[496] We show up.

[497] We went in Doug's 57 Chevy that had Octaman in the back seat, you know, and we show up there and looking around and there's nobody there.

[498] And I go, what the hell?

[499] You know, so, and this is, you know, before cell phones and all that shit.

[500] So we'd have to go, we went back down the hill, down Bronson Canyon to, like, there was a market there, and we got a pay phone, called the production office.

[501] And it was like, oh, yeah, we pushed one day.

[502] We just forgot to tell you, you know.

[503] And it's like a movie called the Octaman, you forgot to tell the people who were making the Octaman, the title character of the movie, that you weren't filming, you know.

[504] And it was also, I mean, they...

[505] That's a perfect introduction to the movie industry, though.

[506] Oh, it was.

[507] And I learned that, you know, you can't believe anything to tell you.

[508] You know, I mean, it was designed by somebody else, and I got this job handed down through people I met at Clokey's.

[509] It was going to be stop motion at one point.

[510] They decided that was too expensive.

[511] They're going to make a suit.

[512] And the first thing I did was a little maquette.

[513] A little what?

[514] A little what?

[515] A small sculpture of the design.

[516] But I said there's...

[517] Because he had...

[518] They try to figure out how they could do eight tentacles on a man, you know, and his feet kind of like turned into tentacles, and it kind of split off into a back tentacle.

[519] But I said, I think they look like elf's shoes, and there's not a good way for me to join the two things together.

[520] And it's like, kid, don't worry about it.

[521] There's only going to be one shot of the Octaman in the movie where you actually see it.

[522] The rest of the time is just going to be a shadow or a glimpse, you know, but we'll have a money shot where you can, you know, make sure it looks great.

[523] the movie starts out with a close up of his feet, you know, basically, you know, and, you know, it was, it was a real introduction.

[524] I thought it was going to be like working on an 8 -millimeter -millimeter movies like I did as a kid, you know, everybody just jumps in and we're making a movie, let's do it.

[525] Right.

[526] Yeah, wasn't that.

[527] The DP, the director of photography, because I had long hair, and Doug had long hair.

[528] He called us the girls.

[529] This was at a time when long hair was, you know, well, get the girls to.

[530] to get their silly monster suit out, you know.

[531] Oh, great.

[532] But we, there was a, if you can believe this, the Octaman was written by the guy that was the writer of Creature and Black Lagoon.

[533] And he also wrote, it came from outer space.

[534] So it was basically those two scripts combined with ecology thrown in.

[535] And he, you know, it was like, there's this day where the, instead of, you know, in the creature, they put a log across the lagoon and they can't get out.

[536] You know, here it was a log across the street and they're driving in Winnebago and they can't get out.

[537] They get out to try to get the log out.

[538] They open the Winnebago door and the Octaman's in there.

[539] And he knocks a guy down and then the other guy's supposed to pick up a log and throw it to the Octaman.

[540] And I go, you know, where's the prop log that we're going to use?

[541] And, you know, he goes, it's that, it's that.

[542] And I go, that's a tree.

[543] them, you know, I got that's going to hurt the guy in the suit and it's going to hurt the suit, you know, and I go, and we're going to rehearse this, right?

[544] And he goes, no, we don't have time to rehearse it.

[545] And I go, when he, the Octaman's supposed to bend over and pick up the Pierangeli, who was the female lead who killed herself after this movie.

[546] I can tell you how good the movie was, you know.

[547] I said, when he goes to pick her up, let's cut there because if you cut, I can wrap the tentacles around her and it'll look more like he's holding her, you know.

[548] So anyways, they start filming without rehearsing.

[549] Octaman opens the door and knocks a guy.

[550] down.

[551] The guy picks up a log, throws at the octaman, hits him, rips the suit.

[552] He goes walking over, and he's virtually blind.

[553] He's looking out of two little holes out this far away.

[554] It was a real claustrophobic suit.

[555] The poor guy, Reed Morgan, who played the Octaman, was great to deal with, but it was a very hard suit to wear.

[556] It goes to pick up here, Angel Lee.

[557] Nobody says cut.

[558] So he picks her up.

[559] So walking around, the guy who knocked on the ground is laying on the ground, spread eagle.

[560] He ends up stepping right on his nuts.

[561] Oh.

[562] Falls over backwards, Rose Pierangeli up against the Winnebago.

[563] She's crying and says he wants her mother.

[564] The other guy's holding her nuts.

[565] You know, the guy broke his hand because the log fell on his hand.

[566] And everybody's screaming.

[567] I'm going, you rip my soup!

[568] Oh, God.

[569] And we lost a day out of our 10 -day shooting schedule.

[570] So, Harry Essex, who was the director and writer, was tearing pages out of the script like this.

[571] We don't need this.

[572] We don't need this.

[573] We don't need this.

[574] And then when they tried to make a movie out of it, it made no sense.

[575] I mean, I think the first 20 minutes or stock footage if in the beginning there was nothing and then you know then there was slime and then you know the whole i can't wait to watch it oh no it's uh there's a uh i think it's in public domain now i think it's on youtube but there's a blue ray out of it as well i might have to fire up a joint watch that one now when you when you look back on that you mean it's got to be kind even though it sounds like a cluster fuck it seems like it's kind of a fond memory as well because that was where it started it was you got to see how much nonsense there is in the movie industry, but you also got a chance to get going.

[576] Yeah.

[577] 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.

[578] We didn't have a big oven.

[579] We didn't have the mean.

[580] So we came up with a clever solution.

[581] 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 schedule, you know, and try to figure out, and that's part of the fun.

[582] But what was cool about the Octaman, And the male lead was Kerwin Matthews, who was Sinbad in the Seventh -Fordshire Sinbad, which I'd get a Ray Harryhausen film, and I was a big fan of, you know.

[583] So one of the first things I had to do, there's a scene where the Octumann's tinnacle 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.

[584] And when Kerwin walked by, I said, Super Dynamation, which is what Ray Harryhausen's technique he called for a few films and he said oh you know about that you know so i thought that was really cool my kids found out about harry hosen from uh monster zinc uh -huh and uh they were like who's that who's harry housing yeah and i said well he's the guy that made all the early monster movies and so then we sat down and we watched king kong together and they were scared at first they're like oh my god i'm scared but they started laughing when they saw king kong the stop motion yeah i mean it's it's today in comparison to you know even comparison to you know even comparison to your version of King Kong when you could, you know, make it mechanized.

[585] And, you know, it's just, it's, it's amazing when you think about how far we came.

[586] But, you know, the, yes, the stop motion.

[587] And Harry Housen didn't animate on King Kong.

[588] He did Mighty Joe Young.

[589] Oh, okay.

[590] But King Kong was what inspired him.

[591] That was Willis O 'Brien and Pete Peterson, who were the animators on that.

[592] He did, um, the, was the, um, the one, the one with Medusa.

[593] Did he do that one?

[594] Harry Housen, yeah, Clash of the Titans.

[595] Yeah.

[596] That was him, right?

[597] Well, again, and Ray was the Titans.

[598] was a one -man show.

[599] You know, in stop motion, you know, it's 24 frames a second.

[600] He did all himself?

[601] All himself.

[602] And when you're animating seven skeletons, and Jason the Argonauts, there's seven skeletons fighting seven guys.

[603] Right.

[604] He did all that himself.

[605] And I became, I became friends with Ray.

[606] Wow.

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

[608] And I said, you know, doesn't it piss you off that now they get millions of dollars and there's hundreds of people working on stuff that you did by yourself, you know.

[609] Well, they could never take away his legacy though, you know, even though he did it all.

[610] But him, he was not just a groundbreaker, but he's the guy.

[611] When you think about stop motion films and horror films, he's the guy that you think of.

[612] You've pulled up Jason in the Argonauts skeleton scene.

[613] I can't believe he did that all himself.

[614] Because that's a very, very detailed and intricate scene.

[615] No, because you have to match what they're doing.

[616] I mean, and, you know, you're in a room by yourself, you know, moving a fraction of an inch of a puppet at a time, you know, and it takes forever.

[617] You know, and I mean, having, if you've never done stop motion, you can't appreciate it.

[618] Oh, my God.

[619] What year was this?

[620] I'm not sure exactly.

[621] And look, they pop out of the ground.

[622] Yeah.

[623] Oh, it's a great Bernard Harriman music in this, you know.

[624] He always had the terrific scores in his films as well, you know.

[625] And again, he was a fan.

[626] He was a fan boy who made a living doing something he loved, you know.

[627] And imagine being the actors and having to sort of respond to all this.

[628] Yeah.

[629] To these skeletons that are popping out of the ground with shields and swords.

[630] Which aren't there.

[631] Which aren't there.

[632] Which, you know, it came, you know, months later.

[633] Yeah.

[634] Okay, you're seeing the skeleton now.

[635] Yeah.

[636] You're scared.

[637] He's going to take your soul.

[638] Well, Ray would.

[639] kind of direct those scenes because most directors don't know what to do with that kind of stuff.

[640] Sure.

[641] Yeah.

[642] But he was, you know, what I thought was great about Ray is like so many artists that, you know, aren't appreciated until after they're gone.

[643] You know, Ray saw the impact he had.

[644] I mean, I went to his 90th birthday celebration in England.

[645] The British Film Academy did this great tribute to Ray.

[646] And everybody showed up.

[647] I mean, Peter Jackson came.

[648] You know, people who didn't show up sent video, Stephen Spielberg sent a video, Jim Cameron, did all talking about how much Ray's films and Ray's work influenced them.

[649] And it was really great, you know, and it's so nice that he was able to be appreciated like that in his lifetime.

[650] And now I'm actually, I mean, the funny thing is I'm getting that now with my book that's come out, people are just going, oh my God, I love you so much and the stuff of you done.

[651] And it's just, you know, it's nice to know that you, you know, I served a purpose in my life, you know.

[652] Oh, you served a giant purpose.

[653] And you served a big purpose in my life, man. Like I said, I'm such a huge fan of your work.

[654] And when you look back, like, what was the first thing that you did where you like, okay, that was a good one?

[655] Well, you know, it's funny.

[656] Once you do something and you look at it, you see all the things are wrong with it, you know.

[657] 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 in something that you like threw together is all of a sudden the most important thing I mean I mean American werewolf was probably the one where I mean that's one that really put me on the map I mean a lot of people say King Kong was but um American War Wolf you know I I looked at it and I thought well that's pretty cool you know but I also went God I wish we did this and I wish I didn't do that you know and I see so many things that I would do differently now that movie's a masterpiece Well, it's a great film.

[658] It's a great film.

[659] I mean, my second film was Schlock, which was John Landis's first film.

[660] I was 20, and he was 21.

[661] And I had, again, I think I had six weeks, and I think I had $1 ,000 again, to make, John played the Schlock Throbis.

[662] I don't know if you've ever seen Shlach.

[663] No, I never saw it.

[664] That's another one you got to watch.

[665] Low budget, you know, movie shot by a kid, basically, you know.

[666] With a, you know, and he, like I said, he played this.

[667] It was based, have you ever seen Trogg?

[668] Yes.

[669] Joan Crawford did it.

[670] Yeah, yes.

[671] He saw Trog and couldn't believe that they made this movie.

[672] So he was making like a joke, a joke version of Schlock, you know.

[673] And he wanted to play this ape man character.

[674] And it's like, well, okay, you know, but you're going to be the director too.

[675] So, you know, he had to be on set at six in the morning, whether Schlock worked or not, all made up, you know.

[676] And it was shot in three weeks.

[677] And John and I were going on two hours sleep a night.

[678] You know, he, I would make him up.

[679] 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.

[680] And we lived and worked in this like screened and patio that was left over in this dilapidated building.

[681] And it was making up John on a bar stool.

[682] And eventually he was like falling asleep and doing those, you know, that thing, you know, and I'd have to grab them.

[683] But he, for some reason, they were doing the dailies at MGM.

[684] So we would have to go from, after 12 -hour day of filming, and, you know, an hour removing the makeup, we'd get in the car, drive to AMGM, look at the previous days dailies, drive back, sleep for two hours, get up and start again.

[685] Oh, my job.

[686] And it was during a heat wave and a Gura.

[687] And the first day, John had the suit on all day, and I was, like, calming it and brushing it, and the hair was just falling out in handfuls.

[688] And I went, oh, my God, and then my second film in my career is over.

[689] And I was staying up all night with a hairdresser trying to dry the suit out so I could glue more hair.

[690] on it, you know.

[691] But it's actually kind of a cool makeup and kind of a fun character, you know.

[692] And John had already written American Werewolf.

[693] And he said, my next film's going to be American Werewolf.

[694] He wrote that by the time he was 21?

[695] He was 20 when he wrote it.

[696] Wow.

[697] And he goes, it's going to be my next film.

[698] And he said, I want to do a transformation in a way that had never been done before.

[699] It doesn't make sense to me that a man changing in his body going through this metamorphosis would sit in a chair like Launcini Jr. and be still.

[700] until he finished changing because I think it would be painful and I want him to be able to move and I want to show the pain and you know how would you do that and I'm going to I have no fucking idea but I would love to you know because we both love those yeah transformation scenes you know pull that transformation scene up the initial transformation scene is so fucking awesome because I remember seeing it in the theater what year was this?

[701] 1981 I think okay so I was 14 years old I was in high school and I remember seeing this in the movie theater and this was another one that sort of cemented the idea that I wanted to be a makeup artist when he pulls all his clothes off and he's burning up and then he looks at his hand his hand starts stretching out like that was incredible this was just such a different werewolf too like everything about it was different yeah well again and I credit John for that and he also said you know I want to do it in a brightly lit room it's not going to have horror film lighting it's going to be real you know how did you do this how did you we call it a change oh hand It was actually a fake hand.

[702] We storyboarded the whole sequence, and that's a different fake hand there.

[703] That's the second one.

[704] Right.

[705] And that's another one there.

[706] It's got syringes in it that we pump.

[707] Now he's wearing an appliance hand that matches that, see.

[708] And we storyboarded the whole sequence.

[709] And as you saw when David first talked of his clothes, he's not very hairy.

[710] Right.

[711] 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.

[712] Let me do him in the hairiest first, and I'll pull hair off and trim it.

[713] Oh, interesting.

[714] Yeah.

[715] But we boarded the whole thing out.

[716] So, and this hair growing was reverse.

[717] I punched hair through rubber and then pulled it through and we reversed printed it.

[718] So it looks like that.

[719] This is a whole fake back again with things coming out of it.

[720] So you punched hair through rubber and pulled it through and then reversed it.

[721] So then it grows out.

[722] Oh, wow.

[723] But what I, we thought what would be the most impactful thing would be for his face to change last.

[724] But what I don't like about the transformation like here, The wolf has a big mane of hair, so he's got this big hairy neck that I don't like, you know.

[725] And it's, you know, that's, David doesn't have lenses, and his eyes were just that red from, that was a 10 -hour day of makeup.

[726] So just exhausted it and with makeup on?

[727] Yeah.

[728] This was incredible, man. That's crazy that he doesn't have any eyes, he doesn't have anything in his eyes.

[729] That's just his eyes.

[730] Holy shit.

[731] But, yeah, this is the first stage change of head.

[732] So this is a rubber head that had mechanisms that push it out, you know.

[733] And this is the second stage change ahead that stretches out like that.

[734] And the thing that was interesting, because, I mean, I was 30 when I did this.

[735] It was at a time when there weren't people that did this kind of work.

[736] There were just a few in Hollywood, you know, like John Chambers who did Planet the Apes.

[737] But for me to find a crew, I hired kids that sent me fan mail.

[738] I was a kid from Texas that sent me fan mail, another kid from Connecticut.

[739] And they were like 18.

[740] Wow.

[741] I mean, I had a crew of like basically 18 -year -olds in me. It was like, I think, six of us who did this film, you know, 30, however many years ago, I'm not good of math.

[742] It still looks pretty decent.

[743] Fucking awesome.

[744] Not just pretty decent.

[745] I mean, there's a reason why I have the American Werewolf, the Pat McGee version of it, sitting there in the front.

[746] But now I have to call Pat and tell him the legs are off.

[747] What's wrong with the legs?

[748] They're too stretched out and too long.

[749] You know, we actually, that was the problem because I didn't know how I was going to make this four -legged wolf work.

[750] Yeah.

[751] And I thought, well, I'll figure out something.

[752] And it came to me one night, I thought, I remember as a kid, you ever do that wheelbarrow race thing where somebody holds your feet and you're walking on your hands, you know?

[753] I thought, well, if we do something like that and have like puppeteered legs in the back, so if the reality is if you really see the full wolf, there's feet sticking out of his ass.

[754] He's got two legs sticking out, but we had him like on a platform with wheels, and the back legs were puppeteered with little rods, you know.

[755] So you never, you know, and the back legs come in, that's when you cut, you know.

[756] Right, right, right.

[757] And a lot of the stuff, like in Piccadilly Circus and the big bus crash and stuff, that's me in a wheelchairer with a head with John pushing me down the street.

[758] Wow.

[759] That was a great scene.

[760] God, that was a great scene.

[761] The werewolf comes bursting out of the porn theater.

[762] Bites the guy in the head.

[763] That script, I think, was the only script that I've worked on in my entire career.

[764] The script that I read was basically the script we made.

[765] The only difference was when John wrote the script originally, that Aeros Cinema, in Piccadilly Circus was a cartoon cinema.

[766] And in the original script, it was a cartoon cinema.

[767] But when we got there, it was a porno cinema.

[768] So he changed that scene, you know, to a porno cinema.

[769] Other than that, the script is basically verbatim what he wrote as a 20 -year -old.

[770] And his use of music and everything was groundbreaking at the time.

[771] People didn't do, like, the way he did.

[772] And his friend that kept returning more and more rotten every time.

[773] Like, that was a genius idea as well, like that Jack had explained to him.

[774] like hey man you got to kill yourself you're a werewolf you're going to kill a bunch of people yeah like it was so everything about it was so unique it was it completely flipped the whole idea of what a werewolf movie was on its head yeah and and it worked you know and griffin who played jack when i first made him up in that makeup uh he as i was putting the stuff on you know in the makeup chair he's kind of like getting more and more sad and like sinking down in the chair and it's like what's wrong griffin is something wrong?

[775] And he goes, look at me. And I go, yeah.

[776] And he goes, look at me. This is my big break.

[777] And I mean, my throat's torn out.

[778] And I mean, nobody's going to look at me, you know.

[779] And it's like, did you read the script?

[780] Yeah.

[781] Didn't it say your throat was torn out?

[782] Yeah.

[783] But I didn't, I didn't think it would look like this.

[784] And he goes, I did.

[785] And that's what John thought it should look like.

[786] So he was bummed out?

[787] Well, he was at first, you know, because it is, it's disturbing to see, you know.

[788] But it's a great role.

[789] Yeah.

[790] No. And he was brilliant.

[791] And he was terrific to work with, you know.

[792] But the initial shock of seeing himself torn up.

[793] It was hard for him to take.

[794] Because it's so realistic.

[795] Yeah.

[796] But he went, you know, I thought, okay, I got to call.

[797] John was in England, already scouting locations.

[798] And so I said, you know, you got to talk to Griffin.

[799] He's, you know, kind of upset about what he looks like, you know.

[800] But, you know, I took that opportunity, being the sensitive guy that I am, to tell him that the third part of his transformation was, it was actually going to be a puppet.

[801] It wasn't really going to be him because he was supposed to become basically a little.

[802] talking skeleton, you know, and the makeup process is an additive process, and, you know, he would have to be a huge skull to look right, you know, and he wasn't too happy about that either, but I said, but I want you to operate the mouth because you're doing the lips sync, you know, you're doing the voice, you know, so he operated a puppet, but he turned out to be a great guy, you know, and he, I thought he was brilliant in the film and, you know, the whole film, you know.

[803] The film's amazing, and it's funny, too.

[804] That's one of the things that's interesting about, the film.

[805] It's like, it's silly, but horrific.

[806] Like, the violence and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the world of the warwolf were ripping people apart.

[807] But then, the, the, the world, it's hilarious.

[808] Well, that whole sequence in the porno theater with all the, when we were, when we were, I was kind of going, is this funny?

[809] You know, was this going to work?

[810] Yeah.

[811] It was a welcome sort of comic relief from the, the, the, the, the, the werewolf tearing people apart.

[812] Yeah, yeah.

[813] And, you know, it's, I think it's a brilliant film.

[814] It's a brilliant film.

[815] And it changed my life.

[816] I mean, I got my first Oscar for that film, you know, and I mean, so fortunate to me that John came into my life.

[817] And this happened again because of Don Poe Studios that I talked about, or they made the Halloween masks.

[818] John was a male boy at Fox for a while, and he knew John Chambers.

[819] He would deliver mail to John Chambers who did the Planet of the Apes makeup.

[820] And he talked to John Chambers at first about doing Schlock.

[821] And John said, well, I need, you know, $250 ,000.

[822] And the budget of the whole film, I think, was $30 ,000, you know.

[823] So I think he basically didn't want to deal with this hyperactive kid, you know.

[824] And so he sent him to Down Post Studios.

[825] And Don Post, you know, said, well, same thing.

[826] And they didn't really want to deal with his kid.

[827] And they had, it would be way too much money, you know.

[828] Right.

[829] But they said, there's a kid who comes in here and buys material.

[830] I used to go there to buy materials because in those days, now there are stores that sell all the supplies that you need.

[831] I used to have to drive all over California to get what I need.

[832] And some stuff, they would only sell you in a 55 -gallon drum, which I couldn't afford, you know.

[833] Like polyurethane foam, which is a two -part foam that foams up, a chemical reaction that foams it up, make cyanide gas when it foams, which nobody told me. You know, but Don Post would pour some in a can.

[834] You go, here you go, kid, you know.

[835] And the first time I used it in my bedroom, I practically died.

[836] Really?

[837] Yeah.

[838] And I have a real strong, I have a very strong allergic reaction to it now.

[839] Because of that.

[840] Yeah.

[841] I mean, my throat closed it up.

[842] I could hardly breathe.

[843] Whoa.

[844] And I didn't know what was going on.

[845] And I found out what it was.

[846] But Don.

[847] Sinai.

[848] Jesus.

[849] Yeah.

[850] But because of that, because I left, that's the only time in my life, I actually had a business card.

[851] And John says, you know, it said Rick Baker, Monster Maker.

[852] But I think it said Rick Baker makeup artist, you know.

[853] But I gave a card and some pictures to Dom.

[854] post.

[855] And when they were trying to get rid of this kid who wanted a funky gorilla suit thing, you know, they said, well, this guy's made some gorilla suits.

[856] Why don't you talk to him?

[857] And John lived in Westwood near the cemetery there, the veteran cemetery.

[858] He drove out to Covina.

[859] And again, I was still pretty shy at that point.

[860] In my bedroom at that point was, you know, I had, I slept on a convertible sofa because I had gotten enough money to buy one so I could fold it up and have more floor space to work.

[861] But my masks and my had work tables everywhere, You know, and John is very loud and 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.

[862] 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.

[863] But, I mean, thank God.

[864] I mean, American Werewolf, you know, put me on the map.

[865] And, I mean, I did coming to America and my introduction to Eddie Murphy was, you know, and I did a lot of films with Eddie.

[866] And because of John, I actually met my wife, Sylvia, on a John Landis film, where he had me play a, originally, it was a Jesus freak.

[867] It was a film called Into the Night.

[868] And it was all filmed at night.

[869] And met my wife on Hollywood Boulevard in front of Fredericks of Hollywood in the middle of night.

[870] And it turned out, they changed it to a dope dealer.

[871] I was playing a dope dealer.

[872] And Sylvia was the hairstylist on the film.

[873] And John came in and says, I want you to be in the movie.

[874] I want you to play the part you were born.

[875] to play a hooker.

[876] So my wife was a hooker in the background, you know.

[877] And there's a picture of us.

[878] It's in the book, actually, on the night we met in front of Fredericks of Hollywood.

[879] Oh, that's cool.

[880] And, you know, now we have two amazing children and a great life.

[881] And, you know, I owe John a lot.

[882] Well, you and John made magic.

[883] He really did.

[884] I mean, that movie was so good.

[885] You know, and as we said, one of the things about that film is it was so strategic in its use of the werewolf.

[886] You know, you'd 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, and you don't see it until he's stumbling on the escalator, and then you see it at the bottom of the escalator, just for a second, just walking into the frame.

[887] Just walking into the frame, and you're like, fuck, yeah.

[888] And they cut right before you see his feet sticking out of his ass.

[889] Well, that was something with the design of the Warwolf as well, because John said he wasn't going to show it.

[890] Normally you would, when you do something that's going to be an animatronic character, you kind of sculpted in a neutral position and you let the mechanism make the expressions.

[891] But from my experience in other films, the editor doesn't necessarily choose the moment where you think it's the best expression, you know.

[892] And I thought if it's only going to be on for a second, I wanted to be scary looking.

[893] So I sculpted in a scary expression on it, which I normally wouldn't do.

[894] So there was no way that it wasn't going to look scary when we saw it.

[895] Right, right, right.

[896] Snarling.

[897] Yeah.

[898] Was that the case with the canteena scene in Star Wars?

[899] Because the Star Wars scene, there's, that's a crazy scene because you've got so many characters in that scene.

[900] And today, when you go back and look at it, like...

[901] It's pretty cheesy.

[902] You see masks.

[903] Yeah.

[904] Yeah.

[905] Well, I, that came about, originally the, you know, the film was done in England.

[906] Nobody knew Star Wars was going to be Star Wars.

[907] You know, Stuart Freeborn was the makeup artist in the film.

[908] He did the Wookie.

[909] He did the canteen scene originally, but George wanted to embellish on it and didn't like a lot of the stuff that he did.

[910] So at ILM, which was in Van Nuys then, Industrial Light Magic, when it first started, the guys that were doing the visual effects for that for Star Wars.

[911] my friends that I met at Clokey's Dennis Muran and Ken Ralston were shooting the special effects and George came in and said do you know anybody that can make a mask because I want to add some masks to the to the canteen scene and they go yeah we do so they called me in so I went over to Valjean Avenue in George on a flatbed editor showed me the sequence as it existed and I was flipping out and it was like what a cool idea to have this barful of aliens you know and go well 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 parrot character and this stuff.

[912] He goes, well, we don't have any money.

[913] You know, it's like, you know, we've already spent the money, you know, we don't have a lot of money for this.

[914] I just want masks, you know, and I said, well, you know what, I have a bunch of stuff I made myself for fun that we can throw in there.

[915] There's a devil guy that I made that five years before Star Wars, you know, there's a werewolf guy and another guy with glowy eyes.

[916] I made those before Star Wars.

[917] I just said, you can use them.

[918] I, I think, you're that they were going to be stuck in the background, you know.

[919] But we did like the canteena band, you know.

[920] The first aliens that you see, almost all the first aliens you see are all the ones that we did.

[921] I think we did 30.

[922] And, but what was great, yeah, that was one of the masks I made before.

[923] He's good.

[924] Jamie's the best.

[925] Yeah.

[926] Play that, Jamie.

[927] Yeah, that was such a great scene, too, though.

[928] These are Stuart Freeborn's things, you know.

[929] But the thing that's great, the canteened band was never there.

[930] and when you see the movie you think it's there and I've used this so many times where I say can we shoot this like in post -production that's the devil guy yeah and these guys were the guys that we some of the guys we made so you shot the alien band in post yeah and in Los Angeles by different people at a different time and I've said to you know when I say to people let's can we shoot this in post and because what happens you know most directors don't like dealing with this 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.

[931] And I go, but this is the money shot, you know.

[932] And I prepared for months for this and you're giving me 45 minutes to do this.

[933] It's not right.

[934] You know, let's shoot in post -production.

[935] Well, that'll never work.

[936] It'll never match.

[937] And it's like, did you see Star Wars?

[938] Yeah.

[939] You know, the band that's in the canteena?

[940] Yeah.

[941] That was shot by different people in a different country.

[942] Months later.

[943] Did you know that?

[944] No. You know, it's like, you think they're there.

[945] You hear the music that they're playing through the scene, you know.

[946] These are some of our aliens, those two guys, the blue guys.

[947] And as is that werewolf.

[948] That was the only one that looked like a mask.

[949] Well, yeah.

[950] I mean, I think they all look like masks.

[951] We made that guy.

[952] And that mask in the background was one of mine that I had before, too.

[953] But, yeah.

[954] Well, it's such a great scene.

[955] Again, it was a great idea.

[956] And people, I did not make that one.

[957] That was on Stewart's.

[958] People think of it fondly, you know, and it's more that it's a great idea than the work is great.

[959] Yeah, well, it was a great.

[960] conglomeration of cool characters all in one bar and you know at the time it was completely unique and new things oh yeah and but after that every movie every space movie had a canteen scene you know and and it's like american werewolf too every transformation after american warwolf was basically the same transformation you know they did the same things you know and it happened on thriller too you know i mean i because of american warwolf when uh michael came to uh john land to do thriller, you know, he liked American Warwolf and he wanted to be a short film.

[961] He didn't want to call it a music video.

[962] 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.

[963] And it was like, you know, Michael Jackson, Little Michael Jackson, Jackson, Five, yeah, you know, he's not called that anymore, you know.

[964] And so he goes, John says, I'll send you a cassette, listen to it and get some ideas.

[965] You know, so I, and this was when we had a little walkman, you know, and I'd listen to it with one.

[966] I had another one that I would like free associate ideas when I was listening, you know.

[967] And it was like, I thought, well, we came up the idea of doing these zombie dancers.

[968] And I said, well, you know, I'm sure you're going to hire the dancers way in advance so they can learn the dance and stuff.

[969] And he goes, no, they only need a couple of days.

[970] So they hired him like three days before we filmed.

[971] And I went, I can't, that doesn't give me time to take life masks and do.

[972] all the stuff that I would do, and these zombies would be really cool, you know.

[973] So I said, how about if the first zombies you see are like me and my crew, because we already have life masks, we can start those today, and we can spend the time in making some cool ones.

[974] So I'm in Thriller coming out of a crypt like this, you know, and all my crew basically are the first guys that come out of the ground and break through windows.

[975] But the dancers, I said, I'll figure out a way we can do them.

[976] And I, because I had a number of life masks of different people, and small, medium, a large male, small, male, large female, and we sculpted, we kept pieces, we called them like bandit masks.

[977] They were kind of like this around this area, like a bandit in a...

[978] Right, around the eyes.

[979] Like a raccoon mask.

[980] Yeah, and it didn't have the nose on it because, you know, proportionally, you could get away with more.

[981] So we had different sculptures, small, medium, large male, small, male, large female, that we would just say, okay, you're a medium male number two, and we made these big teeth that we could pop in their mouth and put some dinsural lining material and fit them.

[982] So the dancer makeups were not as good as the more featured makeup.

[983] But Michael in the upper left -hand corner, that one, Jamie, with the eyes.

[984] Yeah, look at that.

[985] Like, that was excellent.

[986] And again, we kept it that way.

[987] But what happened is the zombies, after that, everybody was just doing pieces like this.

[988] I only did it like that because of the limitations I had in that thing, you know.

[989] But that was, I mean, that was another really quick job in very little money.

[990] Thriller was very little money?

[991] For me. it turned I mean they spent the money they had a lot of cameras and a lot of stuff when they're filming but it I was working day and night every day of the week to get the stuff done and John then surprised me with the making of thriller on the day that Michael was coming out for us to take his life mask to make a cast of his face he goes oh there's a going to be a camera crew here a couple cameras and what are you talking about he goes I want to do a making of and I was going no it's like it always looks horrifying to see if somebody having a life mass taken.

[992] Right.

[993] And I go, I don't need, and Michael's really shy.

[994] I don't need, we don't need this.

[995] I don't, I don't want this.

[996] He goes, shut up, we're doing it.

[997] You know, and it's like, fuck, you know, I was not happy about it.

[998] But then so many people have come up to me who are makeup artist now.

[999] And they go, the reason I'm a makeup artist because I saw the making of thriller and, and it inspired me to do this, you know, and my stock answer is, uh, you thought that if this idiot could do it, I can do it.

[1000] You know, kind of thing, you know.

[1001] Well, there was a time where music videos were a new thing, and then thriller changed what a music video is.

[1002] It was so huge.

[1003] It was a world premiere event that was on MTV, and it's so hard for kids today to understand what that means, but we were all, like, gathered around the TV waiting for the Michael Jackson Thriller world premiere, and it premiered, and it changed what a music video is.

[1004] Then all of a sudden it became this film, and it was really cool because, like, Michael Jackson was this sweet guy, and he's on a date with this beautiful girl, and the next thing you know, he's a fucking wear cat or whatever he was.

[1005] Was that supposed to be a cat?

[1006] Yeah, I, he wanted to be a werewolf, and I just thought, you know, I don't think he should be a werewolf, and I thought something feline would be fit him better, you know?

[1007] And I originally did, like, a Black Panther, and then I was afraid of the Black Panther, you know, I didn't want him to be associated with the Black Panthers, you know what I mean?

[1008] the political part yeah yeah so i then became more of fantasy i gave it longer hair and like white strings see if you find his transformation to the cat because it was reminiscent and somewhat of american of american werewolf but cool and unique in its own way i didn't know we didn't we didn't have the time too yeah i wasn't sure what it was i was i was like is that a cat is it a yeah well that people call the war wolf sometimes people call a cat i said you know yeah i just you know thought it was cool looking you know it was definitely cool looking whatever it was but you know what happened.

[1009] I mean, the thriller was like work, work, work, work.

[1010] And originally it was going to be my crew were going to be the guys that do the makeups.

[1011] And they were all non -union.

[1012] And at the last minute, it became a union production.

[1013] So I had to hire union makeup artists.

[1014] And there were many to do the dancers.

[1015] And many of them were people I didn't know.

[1016] And there weren't a lot of people that were good at this stuff.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] Again, we had a little bladders in his hand.

[1019] There's actually an American world of hand in here at one point, I think.

[1020] Oh, really?

[1021] Yeah.

[1022] You had a Yeah, that's a nail -growing thing was from American Warwolf.

[1023] And then you did a similar thing with the ears.

[1024] Yeah.

[1025] And he had the whiskers.

[1026] Yeah.

[1027] Yeah, it's before his hair grew a little silly, but...

[1028] When you look at that, like, what is that?

[1029] Yeah.

[1030] Is that a cat?

[1031] Whatever it is, it's cool.

[1032] Yeah.

[1033] But he, um, it was an amazing experience because, you know, I was like I said, I was really stressed out the day that we were filming the dancers and I was, I had to make up Michael as a zombie.

[1034] I had a number of makeupers I didn't even know and hadn't worked before with before that were doing.

[1035] and other zombies and I'm running through trailers going no no no like this you know and then making up michael and it's like oh man and we were filming in vernon downtown Los Angeles next to the former John meatpacking place and they just slaughtered the animals and it had this weird smell in the air oh geez and then the dance started and I all of a sudden it just like this wave went over me of just the stress went away and I just was looking at what was having in front of me and it was going oh my god look at this you know and people would money to see this.

[1036] And I get to see this.

[1037] You know, I saw the swirler dance happening when it was, you know, for the first time there, you know, when it was being filmed.

[1038] How many times did they shoot it?

[1039] Not that many, I don't think, but there was, I think there was six cameras on it.

[1040] You know, the whole street, you know, a friend that was filled with cameras.

[1041] But the other thing that was so cool about it, that was one of the dancer makeups.

[1042] Michael, when we were doing in pre -production, Michael did a Motown special that was on television where he moonwalked for the first time and nobody had seen the moonwalk and I didn't see it I was busy working and one of my crew who went home at night and recorded it and he goes you're not going to believe this is the same kid that was in her makeup chair the other day because Michael's very shy as well really meek and quiet in person and he's so dynamic on stage you know and he's like two different people I mean when Michael's performing he's incredible you know Yeah, he was a, I mean, to say he was unique is the biggest understatement in the history of the world.

[1043] Yeah.

[1044] But this whole scene with him, when he becomes a zombie, it was so bizarre, too.

[1045] It's like, even the dancing was so strange, you know.

[1046] It was cool, though.

[1047] Oh, it was really cool.

[1048] And to see it live for the first time, you know, out in the cold with the...

[1049] But they don't do anything like this anymore.

[1050] I mean, really, it doesn't happen.

[1051] Yeah, well, you know, it's funny.

[1052] Like you've said a number of times, I try to explain to my daughters, that, you know, we, we had television but you I had a TV guide I would look at every page and try to find when a monster movie is going to be on and have to watch it then or I couldn't see it and if I wanted to see it again I would have to wait a year or whatever you know there wasn't an internet you know I had I had to go to the library to find books on makeup which there weren't very many you know now there's all these YouTube videos I even have some you know but it's a different world I mean the information wasn't is available and you couldn't you know you couldn't just call up, let's see Thriller, you know, on TV.

[1053] Now, when you did The Wolfman, was there a push to do some sort of CGI version of that?

[1054] Was it, did you have to, like, was there a discussion about how to do it?

[1055] I expected that it would do it, CGI, because everything at that time was basically CGI.

[1056] And I had a friend that got a copy of the script, and I read it, and it read like a CGI thing.

[1057] and I was actually filming at Universal we were filming some of the Norbit stuff at Universal and I went to a producer there that I knew who was a visual effects producer as well and I asked him if he knew anything about the Wolfman because I said I'd love to do this you know I mean that's one of the films that made me do what I do and I said is it going to be CG and he goes no actually they were talking about it being a makeup and I go well you put my name in there that you know I would love to do this So the original director wanted it to be a makeup, and I thought we were going to do transformation.

[1058] We actually built stuff for a transformation.

[1059] It was a weird film in so many ways.

[1060] It seemed like, you know, Benicio was great to work with.

[1061] He wanted to be the wolf man, you know.

[1062] He's a monster, a real monster kid, too, you know.

[1063] Anthony Hopkins was great.

[1064] You know, I did it with my friends, Dave and Lou Elsie.

[1065] but I think we were the only people that wanted to be working in a movie called the Wolfman.

[1066] I mean, I think everybody else was embarrassed that they were working in a movie called the Wolfman.

[1067] Really?

[1068] Yeah.

[1069] And they would do things, the production manager called me into the office once and said, what is this?

[1070] Why are you buying all this hair?

[1071] What is this hair for?

[1072] I go, seriously?

[1073] Why do you need this hair?

[1074] And he had a big, behind his desk, he had a big sign.

[1075] He said, Wolfman.

[1076] And I went and covered it up, and I'll cover up the wolf part with my hands.

[1077] And I go, right now we have this, a man. I'm going to make him a wolf man and I need hair for that Why do you need hair?

[1078] Because wolves have fur It's like What the fuck?

[1079] I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you You know?

[1080] He goes, well, I mean, do you need all that hair?

[1081] You know what?

[1082] And it was like that through the whole movie It's just so embarrassing You have to talk to someone like that I know That they don't just let you do whatever you do I know 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 It happens all the time You know It seems like Everybody has to.

[1083] Yeah.

[1084] And, but, I mean, it was very frustrating.

[1085] But, again, Dave and Lou Elsie and I, we had, we'd worked day and night.

[1086] And when everybody was gone, we had the best time, you know, like, we're working a Wolfman movie, you know.

[1087] And when we first filmed the sequence in the gypsy camp where there's all these gypsies and fog and stuff, it's like, yeah.

[1088] Yeah, that was cool.

[1089] Wolfman movie, you know.

[1090] Well, that's what was, it was very reminiscent of the old movies, but like a new version of the old movies.

[1091] Yeah.

[1092] With the fog and the gypsies.

[1093] Camp and all that jazz.

[1094] It was really similar to the original Lawn Chani.

[1095] Yeah.

[1096] And it also had a kind of a kind of a hammer film feel to it too, you know.

[1097] And we, and Anthony Hoppins' makeup was, you know, a little more curse of the werewolf, Christopher.

[1098] Not Christopher, I was going to say Christopher.

[1099] What was his name?

[1100] Oliver Reed, who played out.

[1101] It had that kind of feel to it.

[1102] And I mean, like I said, Benicio is a real big fan of the horror films.

[1103] and we got along great.

[1104] In fact, he would come into the makeup trailer with old monster magazines that he bought on the internet and there he is.

[1105] And he would quiz me on stuff.

[1106] You know, what's this?

[1107] I knew everything.

[1108] I knew everything on every page.

[1109] You know, and we became, we connected, we bonded over that, you know.

[1110] The scene where he makes the transformation in the medical theater, that was a great scene.

[1111] It's all CG though.

[1112] Is that all CG?

[1113] I mean, it's based a lot on ideas that I had, you know, because I, I mean, what I said, you know, because they said, well, we got to do the great transformation like American Werewolf.

[1114] And I said, American Werewolf, we had a naked man who changed into a four -legged hound from hell.

[1115] Here we have Benicio de Toro, and we have Benisio de Toro with some hair on his face, you know, and some teeth.

[1116] Right.

[1117] We can't, the changes aren't the same.

[1118] We can't stretch out his body.

[1119] We can't, you know.

[1120] Well, we wouldn't have that same kind of feel.

[1121] So I said, well, how about if we do things where his fingers twist?

[1122] and do uncomfortable things and stuff like that.

[1123] Right.

[1124] But we actually made a lot of this stuff, but it's so weird.

[1125] I mean, like the production, we weren't even invited to this set when they did the transformation, even though we had stuff.

[1126] They didn't want you to go?

[1127] They didn't want me there.

[1128] Why is that?

[1129] I don't know.

[1130] They didn't want your input?

[1131] You know, I guess, even though it's a lot of the, what's in there are based on some animatics that I did and some drawings and stuff.

[1132] But it was a really weird deal.

[1133] I mean, it's like we were the unwanted children in that movie you know that's so crazy for me to hear something like that it's so it's stunning because i would have assumed that in my eyes you're hollywood royalty like you're the guy who made american werewolf in london you're the guy who made so many of these incredible movies with makeup and special effects i would think that they'd be pumped that you were there well yeah i thought that too you know but it wasn't the case but you know i mean i you know something interesting, when I read this book on my career, I complain too much about the film industry and I shouldn't because it's been really good to me. I mean, I, like I said, it was my hobby and I made a decent living at it and I got awards for it and I got free food and things, you know, and it is magic.

[1134] I mean, you, it's like time traveling, like working on this movie when we're in London in areas that haven't changed since the 1800s and you have all these people in period costumes, it really is like your time travel, you know, and you get to work with some really amazing people.

[1135] Yeah, see, this is all CG.

[1136] Really well done, C .G. It's really well done.

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] 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.

[1139] But I think they did a terrific job.

[1140] And I, you know, I like C .G. to a degree.

[1141] 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.

[1142] Right, right.

[1143] I just don't like that they do things when we can do it, you know.

[1144] And I think a lot of it comes down to before American Warwolf, I would have to try to beg people to let me do something.

[1145] I mean, it was like, can I put a mustache and a scar on that?

[1146] this guy, you know, and after American War Wolf, I would get scripts with stuff in it.

[1147] I had no idea how the hell I was going to do it in like crazy, crazy stuff.

[1148] But they would say to me, what, because they did a lot of interviews after American Warholfe, and they said, what is the material that changed, that allowed you to do work that we haven't seen before?

[1149] And I said, I got adequate time and adequate money.

[1150] And it was the first time I had that.

[1151] And after that, like when I did Grimlins too, I had a, I had a, a year's prep.

[1152] But the problem is I need answers a year before we start filming because I need to make the stuff.

[1153] And usually a director's on another movie then.

[1154] It doesn't want, you know, well, eventually after I hound them, I try to get an answer, well, give me some kind of answer, which is just to make me shut up, you know.

[1155] C .G, all that stuff comes in post.

[1156] The film's already made.

[1157] You kind of cut it together.

[1158] They start making the stuff.

[1159] But this is obviously makeup.

[1160] That is, yeah.

[1161] So was CG during the transformation?

[1162] Until he's the werewolf.

[1163] And then when he's the werewolf, this was done in a different day?

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] Well, I mean, the CG was done all in post.

[1166] Right.

[1167] But, yeah, him sitting in the chair was Benicio on the day, and that's actually the stunt double.

[1168] And so sometimes when he was running, he was running on all fours.

[1169] Yeah, and on leg extensions, and most of that stuff is Spencer Wilding, who was our stunt double.

[1170] There's some shots of close -ups, this is Spencer, the stunt double.

[1171] Yeah, but that was what was weird.

[1172] about it.

[1173] It's like he's running, but he's got kind of like dog legs.

[1174] Yeah, well, he's got, he's a werewolf.

[1175] Yeah, but he's running on two legs.

[1176] Yeah, well, he's a biped.

[1177] I get it.

[1178] That's been easy.

[1179] But it was it was a hybrid, you know, of American werewolf and the original Wolfman.

[1180] Well, you know, the Wolfman had, you know, he stayed on his, balls of his feet, you know, he tried to get that illusion of, like, dog legs.

[1181] Oh, did it?

[1182] The original one?

[1183] Yeah.

[1184] Yeah.

[1185] And, you know, I, it's so funny because I walk like that as a kid all the time, you know, and it would do things and so could Dave Elsie, but when we tried to get the stunt guys or even Benicio to do it, they couldn't do it.

[1186] They couldn't walk on their toes?

[1187] On the balls of their feet like that with their heels up.

[1188] Why not?

[1189] I don't know.

[1190] You know, it's like, how come I can do it?

[1191] But it's also something, a skill I developed as a child.

[1192] Oh, that's hilarious.

[1193] Now, when you see a film like that and you say, you know, 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?

[1194] Well, pretty much American War Wolf.

[1195] Yeah, well, that was the best one.

[1196] Yeah, well, and again, you know, a Gremlin's two, which I did, was a film I turned down numerous times.

[1197] My friend Chris, Chris, I can't speak, Chris Whaless did the original Grimlins.

[1198] And I didn't basically want to copy Chris's work.

[1199] Right.

[1200] And I also knew it was a big job with a lot of stuff.

[1201] And they kept after me. Chris was unavailable.

[1202] I think he was doing the fly.

[1203] The Jeff Goldblum version?

[1204] Yeah, which is...

[1205] Amazing.

[1206] Yeah, Jeff was great.

[1207] He should have won an Oscar.

[1208] I mean, that was one of the all -time great performances.

[1209] Yeah, a lot of people forgot about that movie.

[1210] Oh, no, he's brilliant in that.

[1211] But they said, what can we do to entice you to do this movie?

[1212] And I go, let me redesign the Gremlin some.

[1213] I go, I would like to make them individual characters.

[1214] Chris's version, all the Gremlins are all the same.

[1215] mold.

[1216] All the mogwai's were all the same mold.

[1217] So you basically, because you can't make one puppet that does everything.

[1218] So you have this, you know, this puppet that you have your hand and you have this puppet that you have some rods on, you have this puppet that does this.

[1219] But they could be interchangeable for any, any maguire or any gremlin.

[1220] Making them individual characters means I had to have, you know, six versions of each one, you know.

[1221] So we made hundreds of things.

[1222] But I said, you know, if I can make them characters and change the design some, I'd be more interested.

[1223] And then we came up with the idea of doing the genetics lab where one turns down.

[1224] to a bat, one turns into a spider, one turns into a vegetable gremlin.

[1225] But what was great about working with Joe Dante, I mean, Joe is also a monster fan, you know, monster kid guy.

[1226] So we could communicate in that way.

[1227] You know, we would say, you know, it's like an invasion of saucer man. He knew what I was talking about.

[1228] Oh, okay.

[1229] Like Barry Sondentfeld, who I did men in black with, if I said that to him, he'd go, you know, I never seen a science fiction movie.

[1230] He never saw any science fiction.

[1231] That's what he said, I went to see alien, but I got too scared and left.

[1232] Oh, God.

[1233] And my crew on, on.

[1234] Men in Black were going, oh, my God, this is going to be a disaster, you know.

[1235] And I was saying, you know, it could be a really good thing.

[1236] He could make a really unique film and not just base it on other stuff that get seen, you know.

[1237] And I think Men and Black is a really great film.

[1238] It is right.

[1239] Yeah, it's really fun.

[1240] And he was terrific for it, you know, but at first it was a little scary, you know.

[1241] But Joe, but, you know, Joe was great.

[1242] And he's really open to suggestions, you know.

[1243] And on the first Grimlins, they had a suggestion box.

[1244] It's like, what can we have the Grimlins do and people would put things in there?

[1245] So, you know, we would say, how about if we do this?

[1246] How about if we do that?

[1247] Okay.

[1248] You know, so it was a nice collaboration, you know, and that was fun.

[1249] So you have some fond memories.

[1250] Oh, no, I mean, I have a lot of fond memories, and mostly it's in the pre -production time.

[1251] I mean, my crew.

[1252] It is hard, though, to not concentrate.

[1253] It's like you have to make a concerted effort to not concentrate on the annoyances and the negative parts.

[1254] Yeah, and it is hard, and especially when you get it every day.

[1255] Yeah.

[1256] But the hours, you know, people don't realize, I mean, a normal film day is a 12 -hour day.

[1257] Yeah.

[1258] But I, you know, for me, an average makeup is a three -and -a -half -hour makeup.

[1259] Then you have a 12 -hour day.

[1260] Then you have an hour removal time.

[1261] So they're very long days.

[1262] 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 the stuff done.

[1263] And that's pre -adarol.

[1264] Yeah.

[1265] Nobody had Adderall back then.

[1266] Yeah.

[1267] And I, you know, I'm surprised that I'm, you know, like I said, I'm going to say, I'm going to It would be 69 in like a month.

[1268] And I'm surprised I'm still alive first of all, you know, and able to walk and do stuff.

[1269] You know, when I think about the days of standing on my feet all day long and all the stuff.

[1270] Well, what about the chemicals?

[1271] That's the thing that I would think of.

[1272] It's a little scary, yeah.

[1273] You know, and we, I mean, I, because of my experience of, like I said, with a polyurethane foam.

[1274] Yeah.

[1275] I know that, you know, this stuff is dangerous.

[1276] And I also had one time we, the paint that I used to.

[1277] used to paint rubber.

[1278] It's hard to get rubber to paint to stick to rubber.

[1279] And I found out that on the creature from the Black Lagoon, they made paint out of rubber cement and universal tinting colors, uh, and thinned it with benzene.

[1280] And it was bond to rubber.

[1281] So I used to paint my masks in my bedroom with benzene, which is a carcinogen, uh, you know, atomizing it, spraying through an airbrush, you know, no spray booth or anything.

[1282] I used to have a five -gallon drama benzene that I'd wash my hands off in, you know.

[1283] Oh my God.

[1284] And then when I found out, because they weren't material safety data sheets like they are now, you know, when I found out how dangerous this stuff was, I became kind of fanatical about it.

[1285] You know, my shop, my studio, I had seven spray booths to take the fumes away and make sure it was safe.

[1286] And I mean, I had, I think, the safest shop in Hollywood with this stuff because I didn't want to, I didn't want to find out 10 years down the line that half my crew died because of something that they dealt with with me. But yeah, it's a little scary, especially in the old days when we didn't know better.

[1287] Right.

[1288] Most people now are pretty safe with us stuff.

[1289] What was the last film you worked on?

[1290] Maleficent.

[1291] Not the one that just came out, but the first one, yeah.

[1292] And it was interesting.

[1293] I, it came about because a friend, Tony G., who was Angie's makeup artist and does her beauty makeup all the time.

[1294] She worked with me on first on the Nutty Professor and then we did Life together and she was like the department had on the Grinch, on the Grinch of all Christmas and Planet the Apes that I did dealt with all the makeup artists and it was really great.

[1295] She's a great beauty makeup artist but also a really great effects makeup person and she said to Angie, you know when they were going to do Maleficent, she goes, you have to get in Rick Bates.

[1296] 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 I said, boy, I don't, I don't, I don't, women are the hardest to make up, you know, the, especially if you do an age of makeup, you know, I don't think any woman wants to look old, you know, and I've done some films where we do the most incredibly subtle little thing, and then the actress won't want, doesn't want to come out of the trailer because they say they look like a burn victim, you know?

[1297] You know, and stuff, you know, or in tears.

[1298] And I said, you know, I, Angie wanted appliances.

[1299] She wanted rubber on her face.

[1300] And I was thinking, I don't think she should have, you know.

[1301] I said, well, I think we can do it with the horns and maybe just ears, you know.

[1302] But she had this very specific idea that she wanted these angular sharp cheeks.

[1303] Yeah.

[1304] So, I mean, the very first thing I did, I said, well, let me just think about it and do a design what I think it should be.

[1305] I did this design and then I met with Angie she came to my studio which is now a storage facility and she brought a couple of her kids and like a nanny kind of person and paparazzi followed her we closed the gates and we're talking and she's telling me what she wants and one of her kids says to the nanny person and goes I want a Coke and Angie was mid -sentence talking to me and she went please you know and it really I like that she was teaching her kids manners you know and that that kind of sold me right there you know it's like okay she's a mom too you know and and she is incredibly beautiful to look at you know and she's pretty persuasive in that respect you know yeah they don't get any prettier yeah they just get different yeah but I mean I wow yeah well you did a great job in keeping that beautiful face but adding just a little bit of weirdness yeah and again with the horns I was saying you know maybe this is a really good case of doing C .G. horns and having them tracked onto her because when you have something that's that much hard.

[1306] Well, we made it really lightweight.

[1307] It was incredibly lightweight.

[1308] And we spent a lot of time developing these lightweight horns.

[1309] That could be removable.

[1310] So she didn't have to wear them all the time.

[1311] So they removed like at a point about this far up off of her wig.

[1312] So I thought if they decide they don't like them, we can take them off and they'd be a good for CG.

[1313] Yeah.

[1314] But she She wanted them, and she wore them.

[1315] But so we, you know, we spent a lot of time trying to make those really light.

[1316] What about the wings?

[1317] The wings I didn't do.

[1318] I don't, I think, I'm not sure even how they did that.

[1319] I didn't go to location on the filming.

[1320] Tony G. made her up, and I had a really great Dutch guy who was a fan named Arian, Titan, who did, who put the appliances on with Tony G. And, and represented me on the set.

[1321] What is that picture with the American Werewolf with the hand stick?

[1322] That's a Mike Hill.

[1323] Mike Hill does these cool, like wax figures, but they're silicone.

[1324] So he did me, and he did me as a younger man, which was one of the worst ones he's done.

[1325] This was at the Academy for something, but yeah, I gave him the molds actually from American Warwell for the hands and some of the stuff.

[1326] But he does these great figures, and unfortunately, and I think he even agrees the one they did of me. He was one of the less successful was.

[1327] I think it looks good.

[1328] Well, it looks good, but it looks a little grim, too.

[1329] A little bit.

[1330] Part of that was my fault, though.

[1331] 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.

[1332] But I sat for him, and he had lifecast and everything.

[1333] But he does some brilliant stuff.

[1334] What ever happened to the original molds and all the original masks and stuff from the American World from London, the original sculpture of the wolf?

[1335] Well, that sculpture gets destroyed basically when you make.

[1336] the mold.

[1337] I have one of the original heads still.

[1338] 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 and to make it congeal and then you bake it in the oven.

[1339] But because it's an organic material to decomposes, it rots.

[1340] Oh, really?

[1341] Yeah.

[1342] And it will last through a film, but it usually doesn't last years.

[1343] But it does, the American World, the stunt head, the one that I kill Griffin with on the Moors and that go through the Pig Daily I have.

[1344] and it's hard as a rock.

[1345] It turns to like, I call it like grain crackers.

[1346] And if you touch it hard, it'll crumble into dust.

[1347] Oh, wow.

[1348] Mine's, it's all hard like that, but it's not, people don't touch it, you know.

[1349] So what does Pat McGee make these out of, the one of that our wolf is?

[1350] I think it's probably slip rubber and polyurethane foam, and that lasts a lot longer, but it will decompose.

[1351] Oh, well, I'll have to start ordering another one.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] Maybe if we get them to do the legs right.

[1354] If you keep it out of sunlight and keep it out, you know, I mean.

[1355] He doesn't get out of the studio.

[1356] Yeah, that's good.

[1357] He'll last a long time.

[1358] 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.

[1359] Oh, wow.

[1360] And they are still supple.

[1361] You can still move them.

[1362] I don't know how that rubber has lasted all that time.

[1363] That's pretty incredible.

[1364] Long time, you know.

[1365] When anyone comes here, one of the first things you want to do is take a picture with the wolf.

[1366] That literally is like one of the friends.

[1367] Like, everybody in 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.

[1368] with the wolf.

[1369] Oh, no. Yes, a lot of that.

[1370] There's a lot of people from behind the wolf.

[1371] I think I should get residuals.

[1372] You probably should get some, little piece, a little taste, something, free coax, something, anything.

[1373] But that, I mean, that thing is, it's, if you had to go through, like, all the more, the most iconic monsters in the history of films, I mean, you're, you're in the top two or three.

[1374] I mean, it's right there with all of them.

[1375] That, that werewolf was like, my God.

[1376] I mean, it's absolutely one of the most iconic monsters ever.

[1377] Someone just on my Instagram just posted a picture of a tattoo, a beautiful tattoo of the werewolf.

[1378] Oh, yeah?

[1379] So many people have them.

[1380] One guy did a cover -up tattoo that was incredible of the werewolf.

[1381] But it's funny, I mean, I have the werewolf.

[1382] I have Harry on people.

[1383] I've got the Grinch, you know.

[1384] And some of the stuff.

[1385] Harry and the Henderson's Harry?

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] Yeah.

[1388] That's another one.

[1389] 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.

[1390] The only thing I think I would change is that I would make his teeth a little more translucent, you know, in the ends.

[1391] But that was a challenging movie because he had to communicate just by his visual expressions.

[1392] Right.

[1393] And carry the movie, you know.

[1394] And I think he did and I think it works quite well.

[1395] Was there a movie that stands out as being the most frustrating, like the end result?

[1396] probably you know I mean they're all frustrating to a degree you know what I don't know if there's one particular one I mean I did and I don't consider this my film I was approached by Bob Weinstein to do a werewolf movie called cursed that West Craven was going to direct and I basically turned it down and there wasn't a lot of time and Bob used my own words against me apparently on a DVD of American World.

[1397] I said, I'd love to have the opportunity to do a transformation again and do it knowing what I know now and with the crew that I have now.

[1398] Right.

[1399] And he goes, I'm giving you that.

[1400] You said that, you know.

[1401] So I said to him, the only way I would do this is if you don't have an opinion and West doesn't have an opinion, you just let me make what I think is best for this film.

[1402] It's the only way it can make it cool in the time that you have.

[1403] I can't play the change this, change that game.

[1404] You know, absolutely you know of course that's not the case no they say that and yeah they say that and it was like change this change that change that change this change that and it was just like you know you almost have to have a clause in the contract that if they do fuck with you at all you could just leave and get paid I've done that in one one contract but but yeah it turned out they started the film before they really had a script and it was a oh well that idea yeah and it happens all the time and it was just a mess.

[1405] I never even heard of it.

[1406] First, yeah, well, it's good.

[1407] You didn't hear about it.

[1408] I'm surprised I'm even mentioning it because it did.

[1409] They shut the film down and I went, okay, and I said, but we were doing some really cool transformation stuff and it wasn't quite done.

[1410] And I said, listen, if you ever think the film's going to pick up again, if you can keep a number of my people on for another month, we can have this transformation stuff, we'll put it in a box, it'll be ready to go.

[1411] So if they disperse now, it's going to be like starting again because nobody, you know, I won't necessarily get the same people, you know.

[1412] Just put everything in a box, you know, ship it to us where, you know, if we start up again, you know, we'll figure it out.

[1413] They started up again.

[1414] I didn't do it.

[1415] I was on something else.

[1416] Someone else took over.

[1417] They changed everything that I made.

[1418] They didn't use a lot of what I made.

[1419] But the film has a single card opening credit says Rick Baker on it.

[1420] And I spoke with Weinstein and go, I don't want credit for this.

[1421] this film is not my film this isn't my work anymore but it would help them to have you on it yeah yeah so i mean i found that frustrating you know but you know again i have no right to complain about this stuff they don't do a lot of monster movies anymore and the number of werewolf movies you can kind of count them on one hand right i mean you got the howling one stretching hand i mean you have the howling of course you have american werewolf you have the earlier films, but this, it's, you know, and then you have those, I don't consider them werewolf movies, those, what are the ones with the lady, the Underworld?

[1422] Yeah, Underworld, yeah.

[1423] Yeah, those are kind of.

[1424] But, but they're fun to watch Kate Beckinsale in a latex suit, yeah.

[1425] She's hot, she's pretty fucking hot.

[1426] But they're just kind of whack.

[1427] The movies are kind of whack.

[1428] The vampires are whack.

[1429] It's like, I don't buy any what you're selling.

[1430] I don't think these are real vampires.

[1431] I'm not scared.

[1432] I don't think that's a werewolf.

[1433] Get the fuck out of here.

[1434] Yeah, well, I'm more old school, horror movie guy.

[1435] And I'm not a big slasher movie guy, you know, I mean, again, I don't like, I mean, I can't, I can't watch those fights that you're, you know, those UFC fights, really?

[1436] No, I have one of my crew, Eddie Yang, the, uh, shout out to Eddie.

[1437] Great guy, yeah.

[1438] Eddie was the, he, he studied with one of the graces.

[1439] Oh, cool.

[1440] And he was saying, you get, hey, you got to watch this, Rick.

[1441] And I mean, these guys hit each other in the face with their elbow and I, I think, no, it's not for me, you know.

[1442] And people will send me because they think I like this stuff.

[1443] pictures.

[1444] Oh, look, fell down and cut my head.

[1445] You know, it's like, I don't see that.

[1446] I pass out when I cut myself, you know.

[1447] Really?

[1448] Yeah.

[1449] Do you?

[1450] I mean, fake gore is one thing, you know, 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?

[1451] And people become, when you see, you know, a guy with a, you know, get shoved in, a knife shoved in a, design that people in the audience is like cheer.

[1452] Right.

[1453] That seems wrong to me, you know?

[1454] Yeah, the desensitization.

[1455] You know, you should be repulsed by this stuff.

[1456] And, I mean, you know, it's, I don't know.

[1457] 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 World from London.

[1458] We're just ripping guys heads off and Piccadilly service.

[1459] But it's monster gore, you know, and it's the same thing like, you know, if it's a zombie killing, you know, you're killing zombie, that's okay.

[1460] you know that's not real you know right but just killing a person it another person killing a person in a graphic way right i'm not fond of you know so i don't like you know i mean i like well i call them monster movies more than you know and i like me too yeah and you know i mean that charles lot and quasimodo i mean it's a brilliant film and yes it's a brilliant makeup yeah 1939 right uh and you know it's a perfect makeup on a perfect actor you know uh charles lot was great in that movie and you feel for him you know you feel for the frankenstein's monster you know those those movies just don't there's so few and far between today like i see a real frankenstein type movie were you fond of the robert de nero version of frankestine you know when i heard they were going to do that film i thought i got to do this you know um and i like i said i don't have an agent i have a lawyer that makes my deals that i ended up you have to they give you contracts you don't understand, you know.

[1461] Right.

[1462] And he, I said, do you know anybody involved with this?

[1463] Because, you know, can you put in a, put my name in the hat, you know, and they didn't seem to be interested.

[1464] And when I saw the film, I, I was kind of glad I didn't do it.

[1465] I wasn't.

[1466] And I also, I was disappointed.

[1467] I thought, how cool they got Robert De Niro and not just some big stunt guy.

[1468] Right.

[1469] Yeah.

[1470] Because, you know, Karloff was a good actor, I think, too.

[1471] And then eventually, you know, when it turned into Glenn Strange, who was bigger and stuff who was still kind of cool Frankenstein but it wasn't Karloff you know I thought great that they have an actor you know but I was so disappointed and when I saw it I didn't think what he did was amazing at all and the design it was a lot of work and I thought it was well done but it didn't have the impact that Karloff right.

[1472] Yeah impact's right expression yeah and and you know and it's something it's very much when I was a kid I did a makeup thinking, well, he's pieced together out of a bunch of different people.

[1473] It should be lots of scars and some different colors and things, you know.

[1474] But you need a certain silhouette and something that just catches your eye, you know.

[1475] And I didn't think that one did.

[1476] Pull up the image of Robert De Niro as Frankenstein.

[1477] And you should pull up Boris Karloff at the same time.

[1478] Yeah, well, the Boris Karloff won.

[1479] I mean, that was the first.

[1480] And that's iconic.

[1481] Yeah, sure.

[1482] And again, the design, if you think about it, doesn't make sense.

[1483] You know, why does he have a flat head?

[1484] Right.

[1485] Why does he have bolts on his neck?

[1486] Yeah.

[1487] Well, that makes more sense because that's how they feed electricity.

[1488] That on the left, I think that's a test or something that looks different to me. Yeah.

[1489] And again, it does kind of make sense when you think of as a man that's pieced together on different parts.

[1490] Right, but why are they piecing his face together like that?

[1491] I know.

[1492] And why, you know.

[1493] Right, because Boris Karloff wasn't that piece together, but it was.

[1494] The head was very bizarre, like the flat head.

[1495] And, you know, in the stuff you read that Jack Pierce said in the press at the time was, you know, Frankenstein wasn't a trained surgeon.

[1496] He would take the easiest route to take the brain out on top of his head by cutting the top of his head off, opening it up like a box.

[1497] Yeah.

[1498] And putting, you know, new brain in, closing it back up, like a box.

[1499] But it still wouldn't be flat.

[1500] Right, why is it flat.

[1501] Yeah, you would put the skull back on it and maybe it'd be an eighth of an inch shorter, you know.

[1502] Well, how about Frankenstein's bride?

[1503] She was still hot.

[1504] I know with that nephrotiti kind of hair.

[1505] Yeah, she was still hot.

[1506] Is that the original Frankenstein?

[1507] Who's that guy in the upper left?

[1508] That's the Edison Frankenstein.

[1509] Oh.

[1510] And again, he has kind of a flat head.

[1511] So I think that might have...

[1512] She looks like Eddie Money.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] She was shaking.

[1515] Doesn't it?

[1516] Yeah, he's kind of goofy -looking, but...

[1517] But, yeah, Carloff...

[1518] Carloff's face was just so perfect for it, you know?

[1519] I didn't know there was that many Frankenstein.

[1520] At least the other one.

[1521] What is that one?

[1522] On the bottom?

[1523] Well, there's Christopher Lee from Curse of Frankenstein.

[1524] And it's, uh, what's a young Frankenstein.

[1525] Oh, young Frankenstein.

[1526] Yeah.

[1527] And Herman Munster on the bottom.

[1528] Dan, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

[1529] Yeah, I love the monsters.

[1530] Yeah, the monsters are cool.

[1531] Yeah.

[1532] But it is kind of funny that Herman Munster is just a rip off of Frankenstein.

[1533] Well, he's supposed to be, though.

[1534] And, you know, I mean, the father's like Dracula.

[1535] Right.

[1536] Yeah, sure.

[1537] And Eddie's kind of like a little wolf man, you know.

[1538] Yeah.

[1539] And I remember TV guide before this came on the air, but they talked about the new shows that were coming out.

[1540] You know, this is in the 60s, and this is when the big monster craze happened.

[1541] And, you know, I was all over it and saw, oh, there's going to be a Frankenstein guy on TV, you know.

[1542] And it was a great time for somebody like me, you know, and it just soaked it all in.

[1543] What is the impediment?

[1544] Like, it seems like people love those movies when they come out.

[1545] Why don't they make more of those movies?

[1546] You know, well, first of all, the Wolfman that I did wasn't very successful and didn't make a lot of money.

[1547] But that was stopped in production at one point.

[1548] That was reshot.

[1549] They reshot a bunch of it, right?

[1550] Yeah, well, we came back for reshoots.

[1551] And again, this is the same thing.

[1552] Movies called The Wolfman.

[1553] Right.

[1554] They call me up and go, we're going to do some reshoots in three weeks.

[1555] 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.

[1556] And I said, in three weeks?

[1557] 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, all the molds are somewhere in London.

[1558] I have no idea where they are.

[1559] You've got them in storage somewhere.

[1560] I said, we had found a crew.

[1561] We did the whole thing.

[1562] I go, there's no way I can do it in three weeks.

[1563] I said, what are we filming?

[1564] They said, well, the fight at the end and the house and all that.

[1565] And I said, well, the set's going to take a while to put it back together.

[1566] And we know, we started that three months ago.

[1567] Oh, great.

[1568] And I went, so you're giving me three weeks to make the Wolfman for this reshoot, and you knew about it for three months?

[1569] You know, and it's like, you know, and if they would have called me even a week sooner, it was a time when everybody was out of work.

[1570] It was kind of a dry time, but the week before they called me, a whole bunch of shows started, everybody was busy.

[1571] I couldn't find a crew.

[1572] And it was like, oh, my God.

[1573] So how'd you wind up doing it?

[1574] Work day and night, and I got my friends, Dave and Lou Elsie again.

[1575] And I found a couple guys that could kind of do something of the stuff.

[1576] And we pulled it off.

[1577] You know, but it was, I mean, I seriously, it was working day and night, got on a plane, you know, flew to London, got off the plane, made up Enisio.

[1578] And another trailer we had people I hadn't worked with before making up the stunt double.

[1579] And it was like, we have to do this because Emily Blunt is going to be doing Gulliver's travel.

[1580] So she's only available for two days.

[1581] So we have to film now.

[1582] So I get off the plane, make up Enisio.

[1583] stunt double is made up everybody's looking good i walk out to where we're filming and uh they're filming the stunt double in silhouette and this is again there's like video village where there's an army producer sitting in in chairs looking at a monitor and i went over to him i said okay you have to explain this to me and they go what rick and i go why are we filming this fucking stunt double when emily blunt benesio de torro hugo weaving are sitting in their trailer we only have emily blunt for two nights or filming in the summer in England it gets dark at 10 o 'clock it gets light at 4 o 'clock in the morning it's going to be light in two hours this is one of the two days that we have Emily Blunt why are we not filming her and they all looked at each other and they go yeah why are we not filming her well there must be a reason you know and I was going fuck you know yeah the movie was cursed pardon the pun Yeah.

[1584] Isn't John Landis' son involved in some sort of a remake of American Warwolf?

[1585] It's been announced that he was going to do that.

[1586] I don't know if it's ever going to happen.

[1587] Those things happen all the time.

[1588] Right.

[1589] They announce it and then it just sort of...

[1590] Yeah, and Guillermo de Toro every other week.

[1591] There's some film that he's going to make.

[1592] And some of them happen, some of them don't, you know.

[1593] But he's a big fan of monster films, right?

[1594] He is, and he, again, I think he's...

[1595] He was a part of the strain, wasn't he?

[1596] Yeah.

[1597] The television shows?

[1598] Yeah.

[1599] And I met Guillermo.

[1600] First, he was a makeup artist.

[1601] He used to be a makeup artist.

[1602] in Mexico, and he was a Dick Smith student and a fan, you know, Dick Smith fan, and Dick introduced me to him, and Guillermo came to my studio as a fanboy makeup artist first, and I did Hellboy with him, and I was in the strain.

[1603] He has me killed by one of the Strigoi in the strain.

[1604] The strain starts off great, the book does.

[1605] The book's really good for like three quarters of the way through, and then it seems like they just kind of tried to finish it.

[1606] you know it's like very compelling in the beginning it's like an interesting storyline like okay I see what's going on I'm not much of a reader I'm kind of dyslexic so I'm a really long time reading and do you listen to books on tape I you know it doesn't work for me either oh really yeah I I I always say have too many voices in my head as it is you know but I when I'm when working I mean I have a real hard time you know like if you do a red carpet thing and there's people talking on either side it short circuits my brain right and they ask me a question and I'm just hearing these other people and I words don't want to come out of my mouth and it's kind of that way when I'm working and I think part of it like I said it was an only child I learned working in a room by myself and in quiet I like it that way I mean I if I sculpt or paint I listen to music but if I do stuff on the computer I'll do a lot of designs on the computer and stuff and I do some computer animation stuff for fun I can't have any other sounds and stuff yeah you just need to be focused If I, you know, my wife knows this very well.

[1607] If I'm trying to answer an email and she's like talking to me, I just totally screw it up.

[1608] I mean, I - Your brain just doesn't work that well.

[1609] I did a book signing the other night, and if people are talking when I'm signing my name, I wrote the, 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.

[1610] I've written my name wrong.

[1611] In the book, there's a picture, some drawings I did as a guy.

[1612] kid and one I did in pen and ink of Dracula and I wanted to be because it was pin in ink and I couldn't erase it I got out of famous monsters to make sure I spelled Dracula right and very carefully he was looking at the letters and writing it in a pen and ink it says Draclila and I did a painting from my wife this kind of romantic old painting and it was for Valentine's Day and I wanted I didn't know how to spell Valentine's so I looked it up and I very carefully painted Valentine Time.

[1613] So, again, thank God that my career choice worked out because I couldn't work in an office, and I'm sure I'd be a homeless guy now.

[1614] I mean, my brain just doesn't work like a normal person.

[1615] Well, but the way it does work is wonderful.

[1616] The way your brain can focus on the things that you really love and you figure out how to get it to focus correctly, just shut the music off, just be alone.

[1617] Yeah, and it surprises me that I can do that, you know, and I really get in the zone, and I really focus on what I'm doing.

[1618] And to me, I mean, the funny thing is, I mean, my, I think I started saying this before I was talking about not wanting to be a businessman and stuff, and people are always surprised that I'm hands -on still, you know, a lot of other people who have, for example, Stan Winston, who was great, did some great stuff and was great for the makeup industry and helped it.

[1619] advanced the state of the art was a businessman more than a hands -on guy.

[1620] He hired people to do the work and he had a good eye and he would contribute stuff, but he rarely sculpted the stuff.

[1621] I tried to sculpt the stuff.

[1622] I designed the stuff.

[1623] And I'm always surprised when people go, I paint and sculpt and do all these things and when people see one of my paintings, they go, you can paint, you know, and it's like there's a shock that I can paint.

[1624] And I go, you can sculpt.

[1625] You know, I have a, there's a bronze gorilla at the L .A. Zoo that's a sculpture that I did.

[1626] And people go, you can sculpt?

[1627] You go, yeah, it's part of what I do.

[1628] Yeah, it's the whole thing, man. Yeah, you know.

[1629] Yeah, you know.

[1630] But, yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.

[1631] But yeah, I am.

[1632] Do you think that there's ever a project that could come up that could tempt you into coming out of retirement?

[1633] If somebody listens to you on this podcast and realizes that a lot of people have fucked with you while you worked and said, Rick, We could do something amazing, just one more.

[1634] You know, when I first retired, I would have said yes.

[1635] I mean, I was leaving it open that I said, well, I'll maybe do designs or consult, you know.

[1636] I'm having way too much fun doing my own thing.

[1637] You know, I mean, I still probably have the remains of my Halloween makeup.

[1638] You know, Halloween is a big thing in my family.

[1639] I'm so sorry they didn't send you a copy of the book.

[1640] I'll get it.

[1641] Don't worry.

[1642] Well, I get it.

[1643] I'll put it on Instagram.

[1644] Well, it's not so much about that.

[1645] I just think if you're a fan, I think you're like it.

[1646] No, I am a fan.

[1647] I'm blown away by the response that I'm getting from people.

[1648] I mean, they're loving it.

[1649] It's not a cheap book.

[1650] It's like $250, you know, but it weighs 17 pounds.

[1651] It's two volumes.

[1652] Oh, wow.

[1653] And with 2 ,000 pictures in it from birth, basically, to my last film and beyond, you know, in my retirement.

[1654] But I don't know where I was going with that.

[1655] What did you ask me?

[1656] Well, we were talking about possibly coming out of retirement.

[1657] You were saying how much fun you're having right now.

[1658] No, I seriously doubt that anything would get me back.

[1659] Well, that's great to hear.

[1660] Well, because 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.

[1661] Well, you know, one of the things I, when I watched Breaking Bad, and Brian Cranston, you know, is such a great actor, but I said, you know, he would make a great Launcaney.

[1662] If they ever did a remake of Man of A Thousand Faces, which was the story of Launcaney, he would be the perfect person, you know, besides being a great actor.

[1663] And my wife Sylvie and I went to a Comic -Con, and went to a panel that they had on Breaking Bad and we went back and I met Brian and Vince and I said that to him, you know, 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 Loncheney is now, you know.

[1664] But he, to be able to recreate some of those makeups on an actor like that, you know, and if it was the right people.

[1665] But again, I, I realized You know I mean Death became a more real thing to me When my parents died And I have friends that were younger than me That are dead now One of my favorite crew One of my best guys And we just recently passed 54 or something And I know there's an end in sight And I know You know I've got arthritis I've got cataracts There's a limited time That I have left to do The things I want to do And I want to do what I want to do You know what I mean?

[1666] And I don't want the frustration and the stress.

[1667] Beautiful.

[1668] you already did it, you know?

[1669] I mean, you made some of the most amazing movies ever.

[1670] 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.

[1671] And that was another thing with the book.

[1672] I mean, when you see it laid out there in 800 pages, you know, I'm saying, well, I've made a lot of shit in my time, you know.

[1673] Yeah, I've made a lot of stuff.

[1674] And I'm proud of what I made.

[1675] You know, I mean, you do the best you can in the circumstances, and I fight 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, who did, 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.

[1676] But when I read it, I thought, God, you know, what a pain in the ass I am, but I fight for what I think is right.

[1677] for example the Grinch How the Grinch told Christmas they wanted me to paint Jim Carrey green and that was it you know and it was like well I mean I think they wanted some hair too you know but but I'm going come on you know it's not called how the green Jim Carrey sold Christmas it's like Grinch Snow Christmas should be a Grinch you know so I did like I do many times on myself like I did in The Wolfman I make myself up and I film some stuff and I show them so I made myself up what I thought the Grinch would look like I filmed some stuff I cut it together I shouted to him and go, you got to this is cooler than a green Jim Carrey.

[1678] I'm sorry, you know, and I'm going, well, it doesn't look like Jim Carrey.

[1679] And I go, no, because it's on me. And I go, but again, it's not the Green Jim Carrey, you know.

[1680] Right.

[1681] And it seems to me it should be this character, not just, you know.

[1682] Yeah.

[1683] I fought and fought and fought and fought.

[1684] And I ended up doing a thing where I decided to use the Internet to help me get my point across.

[1685] So there was a Internet movie.

[1686] site at the time that was popular and I knew the guy who ran it was a fan 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 and just let the fans chime in so that it was like thousands of responsible.

[1687] What the hell's wrong with these idiots that are running the movie studios?

[1688] I don't want to see a green Jim Carrey.

[1689] I want to see a Grinch.

[1690] So like two weeks before we started filming, they changed because of this.

[1691] And I had sent, you know, but I only sent the copy of my test to Brian Grazier and Ron Howard.

[1692] And Ron's going, how did this guy get hold of this copy of the tape?

[1693] And I go, I don't know.

[1694] I only sent it to you and Brian, you know.

[1695] And I mean, they didn't let him know what I did at the time.

[1696] Now I don't care because it came.

[1697] I think the movie's better for it, you know.

[1698] Sure.

[1699] 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.

[1700] for doing the Grinch and for arguing with us because the decision was right.

[1701] It was definitely right.

[1702] You turned him into the Grinch.

[1703] It really was the Grinch.

[1704] But I thought I was going to get hit by a meteor or something.

[1705] This is not right.

[1706] An executive never tells you that stuff, you know.

[1707] But again, I mean, I fight because it's my work.

[1708] And if my name's on it, I want it to be of a certain quality, you know.

[1709] And it's not easy to get it done that way, you know.

[1710] And it's part of the battle.

[1711] You know, I bet it's also part of the frustration, you know.

[1712] So now I only have to fight with myself, you know.

[1713] Beautiful.

[1714] Well, listen, man, thank you very much for coming here.

[1715] It's been an honor, and really, I was really looking forward to this.

[1716] It was a real treat for me to get to sit down and talk to you.

[1717] Oh, thank you so much.

[1718] I'm glad we do.

[1719] I figure anybody that has an American world in their lobby can't be a bad guy, you know.

[1720] Thank you, Rick.

[1721] Thank you.

[1722] Appreciate it, man. My pleasure.

[1723] Bye, everybody.