legendary special-effects makeup creator Rick Baker on making decades of movie magic • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

I’ve read that you used some Lon Chaney techniques for Vincent D’Onofrio’s makeup for his character, Edgar, in Men in Black (1997), which blew my mind. How did you learn about Chaney’s approach? Was it in magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland?

Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t all Lon Chaney techniques, but it was not totally modern foam rubber stuff either. I had done a design I really liked, and I’d worked with Vincent on Ed Wood (1994). I thought, “Actors aren’t going to let me do this to them,” but I was really in love with the design. I called up Vincent and I said, “Can you come to my studio? I want to show you what I want to do and talk to you about the makeup process, because if you don’t think you can handle it, I’ll try to change it.”

One of the things I did was glue Vincent’s eyes down, like in London After Midnight (1927), where Chaney had those metal rings around his eyes. When I told him I was going to glue his eyes down, I said that I had done it to myself, and that it’s not the most comfortable… I showed him, and I pulled his eye down. The first thing he said was, ‘Can you pull it down farther?’ I thought, ‘Okay, I love this guy.’ So I glued silk organza to him, stretched his face around, glued it down—then told him I was going to put plumper dentures in his mouth. He said, ‘Anything you want to do.’ He asked if I could build a whole suit for him, that would make it hard for him to move. I said I thought that would be a little too much. [Laughs] But he never complained.

Actors always say, “Oh, it took eight hours.” There were a couple of makeup looks that took six hours; it was a long time to sit. But he never, ever complained. Barry Sonnenfeld, the director, did a table read, and Vincent read the lines flat. Barry called me up and said, “I’m going to recast Edgar.” I went, “What are you talking about?” And he goes, “We did a table read, and Vincent can’t act.” I go, “It’s a table read. He’s reading. When the camera’s on you, it’s different.” He still said, “No, no. I’m going to recast him.” I said, “You can’t recast him. Nobody else will let me do this makeup. I know that he’s going to be able to do this. Please, please, please, please.”

Finally, he said, “If you fuck up my movie, I’m going to kill you.” [Laughs] And we didn’t know how he was going to play it until the first day. I was a little bit scared, but I had faith. On set, I could see what Vincent was doing, and I could see the director, and as soon as he started doing his Edgar character, I got a big ass smile on my face, and I looked at Barry Sonnenfeld, and I gave a thumbs up and went, “Yeah.”

It’s one of those performances. I watch it and I’m like, “This is why actors should get Oscars for horror performances,” because who else could do that?

Yes! Jeff Goldblum should have gotten an Oscar for The Fly (1986).