Since the early 1970s Rick Baker has been one of Hollywood's most prominent makeup artists, winning Oscars for such films as The Nutty Professor, Men in Black and An American Werewolf in London. I am proud to present this exclusive interview with Mr. Baker, who designed the corpses for DreamWorks' The Ring.

If you had to introduce yourself in one or two sentences, what would you say?

That's a good one. I think the word "strange" would be in there somewhere [laughs]. I don't know... A real description of myself or like a description of my job?

Well, if you had to say something like, "Hi I'm Rick Baker and I've worked on..." you know, pet projects that just really stick out in your mind.

Yeah, I usually don't say that kind of stuff [laughs]. I usually say "I'm Rick Baker, I'm a makeup artist." And you know, people will say, "Oh, what kind of makeup do you do?" if they don't know who I am. I'm still amazed at the number of people who actually do know who I am. It's so amazing to me. I mean, I do what I did as a hobby as a kid, you know, and make a living at it. And I just feel like I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world 'cuz I get paid to make toys and play with them [laughs].

What were your reactions, from a makeup standpoint, when you saw the effects in the original Japanese Ring?

I wasn't all that impressed by the makeup stuff in the movie. I mean, the movie was kind of fun, you know. And I could see that it could make an interesting film. But I mean, that thing in the end when the face came off was kind of laughable.

Speaking of faces, there's that wonderfully horrible scene [in the remake] where Katie's mom opens the closet door and the head of the corpse actually drops forward. Whose idea was that?

That the head drop forward?

That the head drop forward, because that's what's makes this scene. When you open it up and you see, "Oh my Lord there's this really distended-looking corpse" and then suddenly the head drops forward. How did that idea come into being?

Well you know, first of all we had to figure out what these guys were going to be. I mean, what intrigued me about the Japanese film was when they found the pictures of the kids at the camp or wherever they were, I've forgotten now, and they had that weird blurred face. And whenever they showed the corpses in the Japanese movie it was, you know, they just had their mouth open.

Exactly.

And I thought, it would be interesting to do kind of a 3D version. I didn't know quite how I'd do it, but I thought it would be kind of fun, you know. So right away I did some Photoshop designs, just playing with what I thought might look kinda good. I think I was actually using my face at the time, and showed 'em to Gore. Uh, Gore thought they were a bit too much… And then we started getting people cast, and when Amber...you know, what was her name? Amber...

Amber Tamblyn.

Yeah, was cast, I took some pictures of her making some scary faces. [laughs] Trying to do a, you know, just a face that would be a lot more shocking than what was in the Japanese film. We didn't quite go with the uh, the three-dimensional blurred kind of thing because Gore thought it was a bit much. But anyways, that was a complete dummy of her, and I just thought it would be easier to have the neck move than to have it fixed in one position, in case you know, the camera angles weren't good and stuff. So we made it so that the neck was like a mechanical neck, and the head and neck could turn and move and stuff like that, so we could just get it into good position. I thought it would be interesting and I did a little movie, kinda showed it to Gore. And we did, you know, a number of takes, some still, some moving, and that's just the one that he decided to use. So obviously, he felt it worked the best! [laughs]

Did you watch the film when it was completed? Or do usually, as a rule of thumb, watch or not watch the films you've worked on once they're done?

Oh no, I like to see 'em! I When they had the crew screening and the premiere I was unfortunately out of town, so I had to pay to go see it! [chuckles] I was pleased at the response from the audience but I remember also gettin' pissed off about bein' in the theater. People behind me talkin' on their fuckin' cell phone... And then right when the scenes were coming up that I knew we had some stuff in, people were like sneaking in from the other theater and were standing right in front of me, and it's like God damn it, you know?! [laughs]

You can't see this stuff that you've just worked on!

Yeah! [laughs] But uh...it's always kind of a shock the first time you see a movie that you worked on to see what's really inside the edit. And how much of it, you know? 'Cuz many times we've been working on this stuff for months, and then you would see the final film and it's not even in it. And that happened in The Ring as well, because we did another dummy of the guy who was the uh…the innkeeper guy that played cards and stuff. And you find his body in the...

In the canoe.

Yeah.

There's been a lot of speculation about what exactly was the effect that you were going for on the corpses and the consensus seems to be, as if they had been floating underwater for seven days. Is that a correct assumption?

No. We just wanted to make 'em look scary.

[Both laugh]

Basically what it came down to is, I mean, I originally had wanted to do this weird blurred image, you know? And it ended up just being slightly twisted and tweaked and distorted. And scary! [chuckles] I mean, more than anything we just wanted it to be kind of a few scary frames when you saw it, you know?

And that's just kind of how it turned out?

Yeah, yeah.

Recently there's been a lot of talk about remaking Asian cinema in Hollywood. Of course The Ring is one, Chaos is another, Kairo is another. Do you have any thoughts on, or have you noticed anything about, the sort of "Asian invasion" that's going on in Hollywood right now?

You know, I haven't really noticed that there's been an Asian invasion. Other than, I mean I've noticed all the…Hong Kong flying stuff. Overdone for too long, now [laughs]. It seems like every movie has to have that, now.

The "wire-fu" I guess they call it.

Yeah. Oh, that's what they call it? [laughs]

Do you ever get people even now coming up to you and going, "Hey you're the American Werewolf in London guy"?

No, they don't come up and say that usually. They'll say... [laughs] They recognize from me other stuff. I did one of those Los Angeles Calendar things, an L.A. Times kind of commercial thing they have before the movies in the theaters that kind of point out things that people in movies do, and one was on me and making ape suits and stuff. And they would play it and it's like a little five minute short basically but it just kind of ended up being a commercial for the L.A. Times. I got recognized a lot from that, you know, so I'd get, "Hey, you're that ape guy!"

You got known as "the ape guy!"

I was the ape guy. And I got a lot from "Thriller" and stuff. I've got that kind of trademark hairstyle... And I'm in Men in Black II. Kinda just standing in the scene basically [laughs]. It's like it's just the back of my head you know, but people know who it is.

When you hear the name Rick Baker you're going to think of werewolves or aliens or something like that. Is there something different you'd like to try your hand at?

Well I mean I do all kinds of stuff. I would actually like to do more aliens and werewolves! [laughs] That's the kind of stuff that really got me wanting to do this, you know? I had a great time doing the Nutty Professor stuff, all those different-looking human disguises on Eddie. I love all that kind of stuff as well, and I kinda think I do more of those kinds of films than the monster stuff. To be honest I'm not a real big gore hound. I had a blood-and-guts period when I was a kid, but I just think that whole splatter movie thing kinda got out of control, and too many people became too desensitized to other people being brutally murdered, you know? [laughs] And I don't wanna use my talents to destroy some teenagers in the most horrifying, graphic way possible. But certainly that's kind of the direction that horror movies started going in, so I think that's one reason I wasn't all that interested in that aspect of it. But monsters are a different thing. And monster gore to me is a different thing [laughs].

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