“It’s quiet around here until the next job,” said the seven-time Oscar winner. Baker is the most celebrated creature creator in movie history, but he now has reached a career chapter where he only will take on projects that possess a special challenge or sentimental appeal.
This summer Baker is celebrating his 40th anniversary in the business of makeup, visual effects and monster construction — he was an apprentice to makeup master Dick Smith on “The Exorcist.” The 61-year-old’s latest work reaches theaters on Friday with the release of “Men in Black 3,” the somewhat unexpected return of a franchise that has consumed (and frustrated) Baker more than any other Hollywood venture.
Josh Brolin stars in “Men in Black 3.” (Imageworks / Columbia Pictures)
“Men in Black 3” sees Will Smith reprise his role as Agent J, who,
along with other secret operatives, is tasked to monitor and police all
extraterrestrial activity on Earth, which (unknown to the public) is a
bustling Grand Central Station for off-planet visitors who arrive with
either tourism or tyranny in mind. Tommy Lee Jones is back too, although
his character, the caustic Agent K, is portrayed in most of the film by
franchise newcomer Josh Brolin. That’s because Smith’s character goes
back in time to 1960s to work with a younger version of his persnickety
partner.The time-travel motif applies to the Sony series in real life as well; the “MIB” franchise started 15 years ago and a full decade has passed since the second film, creating the question of whether young moviegoers will greet this installment as an old friend or an unfamiliar alien face.
The stakes are high too. The 3-D release, like other summer 2012 entries “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” cost more than $200 million to make. For Baker, all of those factors, plus the anniversary and the strong possibility that the film is his last “MIB” expedition, have made this feel like a milestone moment.
On a recent afternoon, Baker gave a visitor a tour of his 33,000-square-foot Glendale headquarters, which features an indoor cemetery, castle-rampart facades and a gallery of props and creatures. You’ll find the furry or freakish characters from “Planet of the Apes” (2001), “The Nutty Professor” (1996), “Wolf” (1994), “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000) and “The Ring” (2002).
Baker’s gifts go well beyond the obvious illusions of rubber, dye and
wig, according to director Ron Howard, who watched the makeup maestro
win an Oscar for his Seussian transformation of Jim Carrey for “Grinch.”“Rick Baker has had a huge impact on pop movie culture, defining in many ways the way we look at fantasy characters,” Howard said. “Rick is part painter/sculptor and part actor/storyteller. When designing makeups and creatures, Rick really begins from a place of pure character and finds the intersection point between that and what will really get audiences excited by the coolness of what they are seeing on screen.”
The challenge of creating dozens of varied alien species for each film attracted Baker to the first “MIB,” and his efforts on it led to an Oscar. But it wasn’t easy.
“We did more design work on that film than we did for every other movie that I’ve done all put together,” Baker said.
Rick Baker on the set of “Men in Black 3.” (Wilson Webb / Columbia Pictures)
Every design went to director Barry Sonnenfeld, who has led all three
“MIB” movies, producer Walter F. Parkes and also executive producer
Steven Spielberg. But the creative team members were often distracted
with other duties or projects and their notes on talons, tentacles and
eyeballs would contradict one another or, taken collectively, leave
Baker with a mish-mash beastie and a bad case of project alienation.“Design by community is not the best way to work, and it consumed all of this time we needed to be working,” said Baker, who had specialists sitting waiting for something to move beyond the illustration stage.
Sonnenfeld views Baker as a true partner, although he acknowledges that his own lurching efforts to articulate what he really wants — and his changing opinions — create plenty of consternation for Baker as he returns again and again to the drawing board.
“What I do,” Sonnenfeld said without regret, “is frustrate him.”
In the new sequel, which features some winking nods to extraterrestrials of cinema past, Baker himself appears on screen as an alien with a cut-away cranium that leaves his brain exposed — entirely fitting for a Hollywood maverick who has never kept a lid on his thoughts or impolitic opinions.
“I’m amazed that movies ever get finished at all — much less come out good once in a while,” Baker said. “It’s an awful lot of work and it can go wrong a thousand different ways. I hate wasting time or money and that happens all the time for no good reason, and then people save money by skimping on the important things.”
Last year at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, he publicly cautioned that this third “Men in Black” seemed to be in real trouble because it had started without a finished script and looked like it could collapse in on itself. And what does he think now?
“I was really surprised — I saw an almost finished cut of it and it was really good, my jaw dropped actually,” Baker said, adding that Brolin has brought a new crackle to the series.
As for his own work, Baker says it’s difficult for him to choose a favorite creation, though when pressed he usually goes with hairy old Harry from “Harry and the Hendersons” (1987), a big-footed, sweet-faced giant who despite his stillness and artificial origins seems startlingly alive in person.
Back in the 1990s, Baker’s workshop employed dozens of people, and the pace was so intense that it led Baker to ask himself why he was constantly expanding a business that would need more business to pay for the expansion. After his parents died in fairly quick succession about a decade ago, he shifted into a selective vendor approach and hires a team for each job.
Dave Elsey, left, and Rick Baker won the 2011 makeup Academy Award for “The Wolfman.” (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)
“Since the cantina scene [in ‘Star Wars'] … a lot of the possibilities have been explored,” Baker said. “You’re painted into a corner.”
Perhaps, but Guillermo del Toro, a filmmaker whose passion for horror and fantasy goes well beyond his own body of work, suspects the universe will always open up new secrets to Baker.
“Rick Baker is a singularity — one of those artists that we are blessed to have only every few decades,” the “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Hellboy” director said. “In my opinion he is one of the greatest makeup artists of the past century and, along with Dick Smith, one that pushed the entire craft light years ahead almost every time at the bat. He is also the rarest bundle: a monster maker, a supreme gag maker and one of the very few that can make flawless aging or realistic makeups.”
Newcomers in the industry always seek secrets of craft, but the general public usually approaches the soft-spoken Baker with a quality of life question: Doesn’t his job and his workplace give him nightmares? If Baker had a nightmare, he can’t remember it. As a kid he fell asleep every night in a room full of ghoul heads and fanged faces. They’ve always been his silent friends — and despite the frustrations of working within the confines of a sometimes dysfunctional Hollywood system, he’s happy to live a somewhat solitary life among his magnificent creatures.
“You have your battles, but that’s moviemaking,” Baker said. “I’m not complaining; it’s all I ever wanted to do. And the monsters have been really good to me.”
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