Rick Baker On Rick Baker

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Rick Baker is pretty much the authority on special make-up effects in the movies.

Since scoring an Oscar for his still-impressive-today work on An American Werewolf In London , Baker has been the go-to guy for all manner of creature features (and he’s added another 6 Oscars to his impressive tally).

With Men In Black III , he returns to the franchise that he helped to establish with his unique extra-terrestrial inventions. Join us, as the man himself talks through the most notable films of his career.

On his return to the Men In Black franchise…

“I had a lot of fun in the first two MIB s and I was so much a part of it I just felt I had to do this. When this first seemed like it was going to happen Barry Sonnenfeld emailed me and said ‘Hey buddy, please do this’ and it’s like ‘Hey, you don’t have to beg, I wanna do it…it’s fun making crazy aliens and stuff!’”

On The Wolfman ...

“Unfortunately, the transformation was all CG. I was really hoping to be much more involved with that aspect of it and do a real kind of hybrid of make-up effects and CG and, frankly, was really disappointed.

“The original Wolfman was one of the reasons I do what I do. All of the classic Universal horror movies that I saw on TV when I was a kid really warped me into becoming this guy that wanted to do this stuff. When I heard they were going to do a remake of The Wolf Man ... I’ve always been real fond of werewolves and I just said, “You know, I gotta do this!’

“I liked that it was going to be an old school gothic horror movie. When I first heard about it, the first thing I thought was they’ll do some CG werewolf and he’s going to be climbing the walls and ceilings and shit but when I heard that they actually wanted to do make-up I was really excited. I wanted to do it old school and very much like the way Jack Pierce did it in the original Wolf Man .