{"id":854006,"date":"2026-08-13T17:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854006\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T17:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:12:08","slug":"hollywood-makeup-guru-rick-baker-addresses-ai-cgi-eddie-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854006\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Makeup Guru Rick Baker Addresses AI, CGI, Eddie Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRick Baker<\/a>, 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\u00a079th\u00a0edition<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0Locarno Film Festival<\/a> and presented by\u00a0Ticinomoda. <\/p>\n

\u201cRick Baker<\/a>\u00a0was responsible for\u00a0a Copernican revolution in cinema: visionary and revolutionary, he opened new paths for the imagination of entire generations, showing what it truly means to\u00a0witness\u00a0physical transmutation on the big screen,\u201d said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro<\/a> when he first unveiled the honor.<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven Baker\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the rise of AI, Baker compared his take to his feelings about the rise of computers and CGI, recalling: \u201cWe instantly became dinosaurs, people [said]. But at that time, the computer stuff was pretty shitty. My stuff definitely looked better than the \u201990s computer stuff, and it still looks good today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was convinced, though, that the old and the new could live alongside each other. \u201cThis 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,\u201d Baker told THR. \u201cYou can definitely do things with CGI that we can\u2019t do [as humans]. And I was looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, the veteran shared that, \u201cI 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 \u201940s because he didn\u2019t keep up with the modern techniques. He was building up things with spirit gum and cotton on a person\u2019s face when other studios were doing foam-over appliances. So I put that in my head and went, \u2018That\u2019s not going to happen to me.’\u201d I didn\u2019t want to become obsolete, and it\u2019s fun to learn new things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHow does he feel about CGI? \u201cI think what they\u2019re doing with CGI today is amazing,\u201d Baker told THR. \u201cWhat I don\u2019t like is when they\u2019re doing stuff with it that we could do for real, and probably for less money. There\u2019s a real magic that happens when you\u2019re an actor and you\u2019re looking in the mirror, and the face that\u2019s looking back at you isn\u2019t your face anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe knows from such experiences as working with Eddie Murphy<\/a> on Coming to America. \u201cI had to make him an old white Jewish man [Saul], and I always like to test the makeup before we film,\u201d Baker recalled. \u201cSo I got Eddie in my makeup chair, made him up. I didn\u2019t 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\u2019s not going to be one of those actors who go, \u2018I can\u2019t move,\u2019 when you put something on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMurphy kept looking at himself in the mirror, and then told the makeup wizard: \u201cRick, 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\u2019t think I\u2019m doing your makeup justice.\u201d Baker also recalled that Murphy wanted to improvise a scene with someone from his entourage while he had the test makeup on. \u201cThat became the way we operated from then on,\u201d he concluded. \u201cAnytime he did a makeup, we\u2019d sit him in the chair, and we\u2019d play, I\u2019d film it, and he\u2019d discover what the character was. It\u2019s really different from when you walk into a green screen room and you got dots on your face.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tBaker also told THR that \u201cbelow-the-line\u201d work in Hollywood still doesn\u2019t get all the appreciation it deserves. \u201cEvery 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\u2019t have made on my own,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ll bitch and moan about the film industry, but it\u2019s been very good to me. Unfortunately, it\u2019s the people they consider the below-the-line people who are doing it for the love of the craft. But they\u2019re all called \u2018below the line.\u2019 I feel these are the people who really care. \u2026 And then you got the above-the-line people \u2013 all they care about is how much money they can make. I\u2019ve had people try to cheat me out of my pay \u2013 just crazy stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConcluded Baker: \u201cThe below-the-line people are the ones that really care, and they\u2019re the ones that really make the film. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick Baker, who holds a record for being a seven-time Oscar winner in the makeup field, now also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[180825,64,63,447,28162,134,3389,144233,162673,374852,39333,19928,1433,424330,192992],"class_list":["post-854006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-academy-of-motion-picture-arts-and-sciences","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-eddie-murphy","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-jim-carrey","tag-king-kong","tag-locarno-2026","tag-locarno-film-festival","tag-michael-jackson","tag-oscars","tag-rick-baker","tag-the-grinch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}