Rick Baker has been retired from filmmaking for over a decade, but esteem for the icon of special makeup effects and animatronics has only grown since he stepped back from the freaky faces and memorable monsters. The seven-time Academy Award-winner attributed the shuttering of his studio to Hollywood’s over-reliance on CGI impacting both sides of his business. But the last decade has seen a resurgence in director, producer, and filmgoer appetites for tangible, meticulously handcrafted creations amidst all the digital fare.
The practical still has a prominent place in huge-scale successes like Sinners and The Odyssey, while the industry continues to nominate more and more monster effects in the Oscars category for Best Makeup And Hairstyling—a category in which he earned the first award, and holds the record for most wins and nominations. Meanwhile, Baker’s influential work on the “Thriller” music video just got a direct big-screen tribute in the billion-dollar-grossing biopic Michael.
This all means that it was a particularly apt time for the Locarno Film Festival to present Baker with its honorary Vision Award, focused on titans of behind-the-scenes craft, in front of thousands of outdoor attendees at the Piazza Grande—and for The A.V. Club to speak with the living legend about his long and impactful career.
The A.V. Club: How did you first get to know your idol Dick Smith, who you later assisted on The Exorcist?
Rick Baker: I grew up in California. Dick Smith was on the East Coast in New York. As a kid, I wrote down his phone number and address from Who’s Who In America and kept it in a cigar box where I [stored] my special favorite things, but I was too shy to contact him. When I graduated from high school, my grandmother in New York was in her last days and my parents wanted me to meet her. I was like, “I don’t wanna go to New York, it’s summer vacation. This is gonna take me away from my mask-making time.” And I didn’t really know this lady other than that she would send me a dollar and a birthday card, which I appreciated—it helped me buy rubber. But then I remembered, New York, that’s where Dick Smith lives!
It was now or never. I wrote him a letter telling him I was gonna be in New York, and sent him photos of makeups that I’d done where a lot of them were copies of his makeups. I said, “I do this as a hobby and I’m hoping to do it as a profession. You’re my favorite makeup artist. I’d really love to meet you.” And I got an amazing reply almost instantly. It came in an envelope that was squishy. I opened it up and there was a foam rubber appliance of a Quasimodo makeup of his that I had copied. There was a picture of a test makeup that he did on Dustin Hoffman for Little Big Man. And this amazing letter where he said, “I get a lot of mail from people, but I’ve never seen work from anybody, especially a self-taught person, that’s as good as what you’ve done. I can’t wait to meet you.”
It was at the very beginning of my two-week trip to New York that my parents took me to [Smith’s] house. The first thing he did was give me a yellow legal notepad and a pen. He goes, “I’ll answer any questions you have and you should write down the answers so you don’t forget them.” It was the most amazing day. He was so incredible and told me anything I wanted to know. The worst part was that when that day was over, I had to spend two weeks in New York before I could go back to my bedroom workshop and put all this new information into practice.
We would correspond and I would send him pictures of stuff when I was early in my career. For example, I did this movie called It’s Alive where I had two weeks to build a baby monster in my bedroom. I sent him photos of this multiple-piece mold and he goes, “Where are the seams? I don’t see a seam.” And I said, “Well, this is what I did, how I did it.” I’m telling Dick Smith how to do something—how cool is that?
AVC: Did you tend to chat with actors in the makeup chair?
RB: When I’m doing a makeup, I usually don’t talk much at all. I’m very focused on what I’m doing, so I’m not very entertaining. But it evolved over the years. When I did Coming To America, what was great about Eddie Murphy is he’s watching the process in the mirror, and when I put a pre-painted piece [for testing the old Jewish character makeup] on his face, he would move it around, look at it and see what it took to make it work. When I finally got him entirely made up, he said, “The old Jew that I do is a stereotype. This looks so real. I feel that I’m not doing your makeup justice.”
At this time, Eddie traveled with a big entourage. He came with a whole bunch of people to my shop and I wouldn’t let them in the room because of the focus. But he said, “Can I have one of my guys come in? I wanna improvise the scene and sit in front of the mirror.” I had a video camera and filmed him, and he improvised the scene of this old Jewish man that was beaten up by some Black guys, but he played it very straight.
That became our modus operandi. Every makeup I did on him from then on was a case of make him up in the chair, point a camera at the mirror, feed him lines or ask him questions, and see how the character develops.
AVC: You were the very first winner when the Oscars added a Makeup category, for An American Werewolf In London. What did that mean to you at the time?
RB: I never really thought I was gonna win. American Werewolf is a great film. It’s a horror movie, it’s got some really bloody stuff in it, it’s got nudity. It’s not what I would call an Academy picture. It was an honor just to be nominated, but to my surprise, I won. And the award was presented by Vincent Price, who was in House Of Wax, and Kim Hunter, who was Zira in Planet Of The Apes. It was so exciting and surreal.
I thought that would be my only one. And what happened, actually, is traditional straight makeup artists didn’t like the fact that I won for doing these makeup effects. They don’t consider that makeup. They tried to eliminate that type of makeup from the category, and I thought it was gonna be the only time I would win. I had a couple of instances where they said you’re not gonna qualify. But surprisingly, I won seven.
AVC: Your cameo in Peter Jackson’s King Kong is as a pilot who shoots Kong off the Empire State Building. Was that cosmic revenge for your tough experience wearing the ape costume in the 1976 King Kong?
RB: I met Peter and Fran Walsh at Sitges Film Festival. Peter just happened to sit next to me, but he knew who I was. He was a big King Kong fan and geeked out over meeting me. We started talking and became instant friends. He had this movie there, Braindead [Dead Alive], which I went to see and loved. We hung out the whole time we were in Sitges and he said at that point, “Someday, I’m gonna make King Kong. When I do, I want you to be a pilot in it, and you and I are gonna be shown as [Ernest B.] Schoedsack and [Merian C.] Cooper were in the original film, shooting Kong.” And he did. He made King Kong and he had scheduled this scene as the very last thing to be shot, so I could hang out with him for a while.
I thought it would be fun to edit the two movies together and have me shooting [in the 2005 movie] and then me being Kong [in the 1976 movie] getting shot. And one night on television, both movies were on different channels, and I was flipping through the channels and it almost perfectly worked out. Somehow the timing, miraculously, was there, so I’m firing the machine gun and then it’s me getting shot. Pretty crazy.
AVC:Did you ever see An American Werewolf In Paris?
RB: I did. When I heard they were making it and that it was gonna be CG, I went, “I bet it looks like shit.” And it did. Unfortunately, a lot of people get the titles mixed up. “Oh, you’re the guy who did American Werewolf In Paris.” I go, “No! I did the good one.”
People come up to me and say, “I saw American Werewolf when I was 10 years old.” And I go, “What kind of parents do you have?” But it sparked a lot of [imaginations]. When I did “Thriller”—which was because Michael Jackson liked American Werewolf—[the documentary] The Making Of Thriller was sprung on me by John [Landis] on the day that we were casting Michael’s face. I said, “No, I don’t want you to do this. It always looks horrifying and Michael’s really shy. I don’t want a film crew here.” And John goes, “Shut the fuck up, we’re doing it!”
I was really not happy about it, but I’m so happy now that we did it because I know so many makeup artists that said, “When I saw The Making Of Thriller, that’s when I decided I wanted to be a makeup artist.” It inspired a lot of people, as did the transformation in American Werewolf. I’m really proud, and I’m proud of the people that I trained and my place in film history, which still to me is so bizarre. It was a wild dream that came true.
AVC: I read in a Fangoria article that you visited the set of Michael when they were filming the recreation of the “Thriller” video.
RB: Bill Corso, who was in charge of makeup on that film, I’d worked with numerous times. He was one of my crew members on Gremlins 2 and applied makeups for me on different films. When he told me he was gonna do it, I said, “It’s gonna be a hard thing to make somebody look like Michael.” Even though Jaafar [Jackson] was related, his eyes weren’t right. I scanned Michael’s life masks from “Thriller” and I’d done a number of other things with Michael over the years, so I gave him copies of all that stuff to help.
They invited me to the set, which was the same location where we had filmed the dance in “Thriller.” When we arrived, I was greeted by this army of makeup artists that I wish I’d had when I did “Thriller.” All these people had worked for me before; something like 20 great makeup artists that I helped out in their careers. I didn’t know at the time that there was gonna be a “Rick Baker” represented in the movie. You blink and you wouldn’t know, but it’s Bill Corso made up like me. They put a beard and a wig on him and he had the same shirt that I had on during that day. He runs in and touches up the makeup. It was very weird to sit there and relive that experience.
AVC: One of your Oscar wins was for Men In Black, and I fully believe Vincent D’Onofrio should have got a Best Supporting Actor nomination and won. Could you speak about that collaboration?
RB: That was a movie I turned down a number of times. It’s a movie about aliens on Earth and there were hardly any aliens in the script. And I didn’t like what they had in it. But being the way I am, I suggested a lot of stuff which ended up in the movie.
I had briefly worked with Vincent on Ed Wood.He played Orson Welles, and while I didn’t think he needed it, we made some appliance makeups for him that we ended up not using. When they cast him as Edgar [in Men In Black] I did some designs. I thought, “Most actors aren’t gonna let me do what I wanna do to them for these designs.” So, before I got more in love with the concept, I called up Vincent and said, “Can you come out to my studio, see what I wanna do and talk about it?” He comes out and I said, “One of the things I wanna do is pull your eyelid way down and glue it.” He goes, “Yeah, that sounds cool.” And I go, “Let me glue it so you can see what it’s like. I’ve done it and it’s not easy to wear all day.” I pulled his eyelid down, glued, and he goes, “Can you pull it down more?” And I went, “I love this guy!” He was up for all of it, [every idea].
Cut to Barry Sonnenfeld doing a table read. And Vincent D’Onofrio reads, he doesn’t act. Barry calls me and goes, “I’m gonna recast Edgar.” And I went, “You can’t recast Edgar! Nobody else will let me do this and I’m really in love with his makeup.” And he goes, “No, he can’t act.” And I go, “What are you talking about? It’s a table read. When the camera’s pointing at you, it’s a different thing. I know he’s gonna be great.” Barry says, “If you fuck up my movie, I’m gonna kill you!” I begged him, and against his better judgment, he listened.
None of us knew how [Vincent] was gonna play it until his first day [on set] with my makeup. I was getting nervous. And as soon as he started performing as Edgar, I got a big smile on my face. I looked at Barry, gave him a thumbs up, and Barry gave me a thumbs up back. Vincent made that movie, and it would’ve been a completely different movie if they hadn’t put him in it. It probably would’ve been a very different makeup, too. And that was a torturous makeup.
Jim Carrey complained about being tortured [on How The Grinch Stole Christmas]. The torture for Jim was the number of days that he had to wear the makeup, but Vincent’s makeup was much more torturous. Vincent never complained and he really brought it. He was one of my favorite people to ever work with.
AVC:You cited studios increasingly wanting things “cheap and fast” as a major contributing factor to your retirement. Over a decade later, there’s now a simulacrum technology infecting filmmaking practices, especially effects, that seems to only be intensifying such an approach. Do you have any hope about where things may be going?
RB: The best makeups that have ever been done are being done now. There are a lot of really talented makeup artists all around the world. It used to be that England and America were kind of it, but every country has some guy doing some amazing fake head or makeup now. When CG first came out, we became dinosaurs. But makeup’s come back in a really big way. Barrie Gower, Mark Coulier, all these guys are doing really terrific stuff.
Practical effects are coming back in a big way, too. I think it’s great. It’s what I’d hoped would happen, and it has. I hope that it’s not all gonna be replaced with AI. It’s funny, I have mixed feelings about AI. I’ve always wanted to stay up with new technologies and I can see how it’s definitely got a use. I’ve seen some really cool AI designs and effects. But to completely eliminate artists is a bad thing. And to be stealing from our work.
I have a video-editing app on my phone where I edit the stuff I put on Instagram. They have a lower-end AI thing and I was playing with that. One time, I entered, “How about a bunch of people working on a giant gorilla in the 1940s?” And it did an image of a giant gorilla being made in my workshop. I posted that on my Instagram and got hate right away: “I’m gonna stop following you, you post AI.” I just thought it was a cool thing. And someone else said, “You guys are gonna have to eventually embrace the fact that it’s here.” I don’t like that it steals from us, but he also said, “Don’t we steal from each other?” I’ve noticed some of my sculpting style [comes from] things that I learned from Dick [Smith] or from Jack Pierce’s makeups. We were inspired by these other people and we’ve taken from them. Now it’s a computer doing it.
I just hope it doesn’t put creative people out of work. The thing that’s great about the film industry is it employs so many creative people in so many aspects of filmmaking. And many of them, like me, wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Yes, we work ridiculous hours, but I couldn’t hold a normal job. Fortunately, the film industry gave me a career, and it’s given a lot of other creative people a career
I just love being around all those creative people. The guys that paint the scenics, the art directors, production designers, the set dressers. You walk onto a set and it looks like somebody really lives there. You open a drawer and there’s stuff in the drawer. The directors of photography, the actors, everybody; it’s such a creative medium. And to just have it replaced by a computer is a bad thing.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.