Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1377 - Rick Baker
Uploaded: 2019-11-06T03:31:41.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1377 - Rick Baker' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-11-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1377 - Rick Baker' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-11-06. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1377 - Rick Baker

Here we go in three two one Rick Baker ladies and gentlemen. How are you sir?
Hey, I'm great Joe
Everybody's been saying on my Instagram. I should do this podcast for ages
Well, I'm glad they listened or you listen rather. I've been a fan of yours
forever man
I was a huge Star Wars fan when I was a kid and you inspired me when I was
young
I really wanted to be a makeup artist. I wanted to do special effects and the
kind of stuff that you do
I had no idea. Yeah, man. I think it was probably
Star Wars that kicked it off for me because I like many kids a lot of people
today, you know
We're so removed with first VHS and then DVDs and laser discs and now streaming
It's so easy to watch movies, but when Star Wars came out
We would go see it over and over and over again
It was like a little contest between a lot of the kids that I went to school
with
I think I saw it 13 times while it was out in the movie theater, but I became
Fascinated. I've always been fascinated with comic books. I always wanted to be
a comic book illustrator and I always loved like
like those
Fantasy novels like creepy and eerie, you know those those graphic novels, but
I really became fascinated with special effects and
Particularly makeup after your work. Well, you know, it's kind of the same
thing for me
I mean, I you know, I I grew up in I was born in 1950, you know
I grew up in front of a TV, but it was a little black and white one, you know,
and and
There was always the monster movies on Saturdays, you know
And or Sundays and that just stuff just hit a chord with me and I just said I
have to do this, you know
When did you what was the first thing that you did?
first first ever makeup kind of thing I did well, I mean that you know, I was I'm
an only child
My mom wasn't supposed to have kids because she had a bad heart and stuff and
and but they wanted children and
But I was very shy I'm I stayed in my bedroom
I couldn't talk to an adult and stuff like that
the very first thing I you know
I got interested in makeup and I got some just white grease paint and black
grease paint and smeared it on my face and
Just with a layer of grease paint on my face when I was looking in the mirror.
It wasn't a little Ricky Baker anymore
And I could do things that I couldn't do without this shit smeared on my face
You know, and it just it it helped me overcome my shyness, but I mean it it
started with that
But I mean I but I wanted to do something more, you know, so I ended up making
I made my first mask
I think when I was 13
Um, and it was a curse of Frankenstein Frankenstein
And I did that one mainly because I thought I could copy that one and make it
look close enough because it's it's there's some crudeness to that makeup
I've actually
It first didn't like it, but I like it now, you know
I mean it's when you find out how the film industry works and poor Philip Leakey
who did that makeup had like a week to prep
You know and no money so I did I forgive some of the faults with it. Well, it's
great
when you stop and think about the earliest versions of
Makeup in movies like special effects style makeup and movies, you know, you go
back to like Nosferatu was probably one of the very earliest, right?
I mean
I mean they really didn't have anything to go with there wasn't anything to
copy they kind of had to make it up
Yeah, and I mean the you know
The thing is the Nosferatu is such a I mean, it's a great film
It's a great film and still to this day
Yeah, and and the look, you know, I mean it shouldn't work by all right, you
know, it's like a big hook nose, you know
Yeah, but it works great and and but yeah, it's same thing. I mean Lon Chaney
had nothing to work with
You know spirit gum and and cotton and and he did to this day some of the still
the best my favorite makeups and some of the best makeups
And I think the limitations in a lot of ways made the makeup to work better,
you know
I mean now we can add so much stuff and I find that happens so much now like
with that face-off show and stuff people
It's more like about how much can you pile on someone's face, you know
But sometimes the most effective makeups are just the teeniest little bit of
things that you do and let a lot of the humanity show through
Like Lon Chaney and in Phantom of the Opera
It's a great makeup. Yeah, that's a terrific and Chaney was just brilliant
anyways, you know, I'm great at making scary faces
That's how I learned to make scary faces watching Chaney movies. Yeah, he's
another one
It was like there was not much for him to go on. It wasn't he was kind of like
a pioneer. Yeah, I mean for sure
And I mean again, like I said that still some of my favorite makeups that and
you know, Jack Pierce's Frankenstein's monster
Yes, again crude materials, you know
Any you know, it was and you know, poor Boris Karloff what he had to endure. I
mean that isn't isn't none of the makeups
He did on Boris were comfortable, you know with cotton and spirit gum and collodion
collodion
Collodion, I don't know if you know, you might know collodion is because of
your fight background kind of stuff
But it's a plastic they used to use it to close up
boxers wounds and stuff
It's like kind of this liquid plastic, but it smells horrible and you know to
be working around someone's eyes with this fumes of stuff and
Yeah, I mean he had to put up with a lot. So it's kind of like a glue
Yeah, it's a kind of a liquidy plasticky stuff. Can you pull up a video of nosferado?
What year was that?
20 I don't know what 1922 22. That's crazy. Yeah, you stop and think about that
You know film itself had only been how old then yeah, not very
You know, but yeah, you can get a video of it. Yeah, his
Just the whole thing about the way he moved like everything. It was so creepy
and interesting. Well in the whole film
I mean, it's beautifully shot. I mean so many of the silent films. I mean the
photography is so incredible, you know
I mean, I wonder how what they did with the fingers like how they get his
fingers
Well, those I think those are just his hands at this point, you know, I mean
later. I mean in in like the
John Barrymore, uh, dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde
Uh, you know, they I remember reading the famous monsters, which was again my
like my bible, you know, did you get famous monsters at all?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, you said creepy area, you know, sure
um, you know, they they said, you know, john barrymore did the whole
transformation without makeup, you know, and it's not true
You know, he's got finger extensions on right like a pointed back of a head,
you know, and stuff
uh, but yeah, it's
Nasrattu brilliant. So what did they do for his ears? Do you know? Well, I'm
not sure what they're made out of same with the bald head
I mean, I know rubber existed then I mean, you can kind of see I mean, he's got
I I think it's probably just like a slip rubber
Which is like a you know, hell what we Halloween masks are made out of the ears
and bald head and nose
Yeah, some sort of prosthetic nose, right?
Yeah, and those big pointy teeth
But again, I mean if you if you really kind of analyze it and look at it, you
think this is stupid
It'll never work, you know, and but it works great
And I also think it's because Max Schreck was great, you know, yeah
He does some really cool things with his hands and stuff. Well, if you didn't
if nothing like this existed
And it was dark out and you saw a guy like that in your house, you would freak
out
I mean, that's I'd freak out if I saw somebody in my house anyway
Yeah, someone smiling
Yeah, it's just it's such an interesting time capsule when you look at these
films and you look at something like like nosferado from 1922
And then you look at what we're doing today with cgi in a lot of ways
I mean i'm not a fan of cgi i'm not a fan of it in terms of
Like for monsters month. It just seems everything seems fake
There's the suspension of disbelief is higher than if i'm like
What you did with american werewolf in london what one of one of the more
brilliant things about it was the special effects and the makeup were
Fantastic, but there were these really quick scenes
It was like you saw it for a second and it was burned into your eyes
And then and then it vanished. Yeah, well what john landis said to me is that i'm
I'm never going to really show the werewolf for more than a couple seconds
And I hardly even want to show it then you know, right
And what was great about werewolf working on that film with john landis was he
You know said you're the expert that I want a four-legged hound from hell
I wanted to make a biped werewolf, you know, we argued about it
And it was basically, you know, he wins he's the director, you know
But he says four-legged hound from hell make it and I did I mean the first
sculpture
Was what the final thing became same with everything in it the nazi demons all
that stuff
You know cut to you know, like when I did the wolfman, I mean
Thousands designs and and you know all these producers are going well
Maybe if you do one between this and that and do one between this and that and
or maybe this poor should be over here
You know, and that kind of stuff just is so soul-sucking, you know
And it's one of the reasons I retired, you know, I just and but to this day, I
mean like on the on the cover of my
My book is the sculpture from of the one of the nazi demons from american werewolf
And in a number of people said this is like one of the greatest designs ever,
you know
And this kind of stuff and it's people who are production designers and stuff
and it was it's pure rick baker without
Interference, you know, and and that's what I thought the industry would be,
you know, which it isn't for the most part
Well, it's just everybody wants to it's the same with comedy. It's the same
It seems like it's the same with everything everybody wants to put their greasy
little fingerprints on it and and say
That's the reason why his nose is like that was me. Yeah, I told rick baker.
You don't know what you're doing. Yeah, you got to make the nose wider
Yeah, no, I know that's and it's you know, it's
Watered watered down the designs. Yeah, like I said, it's soul-sucking. I mean
if and when you know, you know
Sculptures take a long time and you know, you sculpt every pore and every wrinkle
and everything
You know, I have like magnifying glasses I wear when I'm doing this and after
you spend, you know
Hours and sleepless nights doing it and then some guy who doesn't know what he's
talking about comes in this as well
You know, why don't you do this? You know, it's well, they're disturbing your
artistic vision
It was just it's I mean when someone contributes money and they're the ones who
get to decide whether things get made or not
Maybe, you know, just they think they're artistic as well. Yeah, it becomes a
disaster
And it's the thing, you know, I mean when you see a movie or a tv show another's
47 producers
Yeah, you know, it used to be
They were show people and there's a guy that you know, for example on gremlins
2
Mike finnell who was the producer who came from roger corman
School of filmmaking, you know, so he really checks every penny and
But he was a guy I could go to and he go what he he would look at everything
and go
Why is it why is this why you buying this and you'd explain it to him and you
go, okay, that makes sense
And there'd be a person you could talk to and you could get an answer from
Now there's like I said 47 producers and nobody will commit to anything, you
know
And then it's it drove me crazy and you know, I mean, I it was I I did make it
because I loved it
And I was I feel so fortunate that
My hobby became my profession and I did well and got awards for it and stuff
and for something I would do for free, you know
But it got to the point where I
I was just becoming a bitter old man because of all this and I just know
I have to retire and I want to make things for myself
Well, I still can't you know, I'm almost 69 years old
And you know havi