Rick Baker, who holds a record for being a seven-time Oscar winner in the makeup field, now also holds a Golden Leopard, which he can add to the collection of fantastical creatures he has created over the course of his career. After all, he just received the Vision Award, bestowed upon him on Wednesday evening during the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival and presented by Ticinomoda.
“Rick Baker was responsible for a Copernican revolution in cinema: visionary and revolutionary, he opened new paths for the imagination of entire generations, showing what it truly means to witness physical transmutation on the big screen,” said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro when he first unveiled the honor.
Given Baker’s experience and track record, Hollywood folks, including those outside the makeup world, are surely curious how the maestro feels about technology and other much-discussed issues, which THR recently talked to him about.
Asked about the rise of AI, Baker compared his take to his feelings about the rise of computers and CGI, recalling: “We instantly became dinosaurs, people [said]. But at that time, the computer stuff was pretty shitty. My stuff definitely looked better than the ’90s computer stuff, and it still looks good today.”
He was convinced, though, that the old and the new could live alongside each other. “This was the new toy, but I had hope that people would get over that, and that there would be a good marriage between the techniques,” Baker told THR. “You can definitely do things with CGI that we can’t do [as humans]. And I was looking forward to it.”
In fact, the veteran shared that, “I have always tried to stay on top of new technologies because Jack Pierce, who was one of my first idols, who did Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and The Mummy, was fired from Universal in the ’40s because he didn’t keep up with the modern techniques. He was building up things with spirit gum and cotton on a person’s face when other studios were doing foam-over appliances. So I put that in my head and went, ‘That’s not going to happen to me.’” I didn’t want to become obsolete, and it’s fun to learn new things.”
How does he feel about CGI? “I think what they’re doing with CGI today is amazing,” Baker told THR. “What I don’t like is when they’re doing stuff with it that we could do for real, and probably for less money. There’s a real magic that happens when you’re an actor and you’re looking in the mirror, and the face that’s looking back at you isn’t your face anymore.”
He knows from such experiences as working with Eddie Murphy on Coming to America. “I had to make him an old white Jewish man [Saul], and I always like to test the makeup before we film,” Baker recalled. “So I got Eddie in my makeup chair, made him up. I didn’t put the back of his neck on. It was 14 or something pieces. What I liked about Eddie right away was that when I put a cheek piece on him, which was painted in Caucasian color, it looked very weird. But he looked at himself in the mirror and moved his face around and played with it. This is a good sign, because I knew he’s not going to be one of those actors who go, ‘I can’t move,’ when you put something on them.”
Murphy kept looking at himself in the mirror, and then told the makeup wizard: “Rick, this is so much better than I ever imagined. This just looks like the real guy. The old Jewish guy that I do is such a stereotype. I don’t think I’m doing your makeup justice.” Baker also recalled that Murphy wanted to improvise a scene with someone from his entourage while he had the test makeup on. “That became the way we operated from then on,” he concluded. “Anytime he did a makeup, we’d sit him in the chair, and we’d play, I’d film it, and he’d discover what the character was. It’s really different from when you walk into a green screen room and you got dots on your face.”
Baker also told THR that “below-the-line” work in Hollywood still doesn’t get all the appreciation it deserves. “Every day, I feel blessed that my hobby became my job, and they paid me to do stuff, and they allowed me to make stuff I couldn’t have made on my own,” he emphasized. “I mean, I’ll bitch and moan about the film industry, but it’s been very good to me. Unfortunately, it’s the people they consider the below-the-line people who are doing it for the love of the craft. But they’re all called ‘below the line.’ I feel these are the people who really care. … And then you got the above-the-line people – all they care about is how much money they can make. I’ve had people try to cheat me out of my pay – just crazy stuff.”
Concluded Baker: “The below-the-line people are the ones that really care, and they’re the ones that really make the film.
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