#1377 - Rick Baker

Joe Rogan (0:00)

Here we go, in three, two, one.

Rick Baker, ladies and gentlemen. How are you, sir?

Rick Baker (0:05)

Hey, I'm great, Joe. Everybody's been saying on my Instagram I should do this podcast for ages.

Joe Rogan (0:10)

Well, I'm glad they listened, or you listened, 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.

Rick Baker (0:23)

Well, I had no idea.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

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, were so removed with first VHS and then DVDs and laserdiscs, 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 those fantasy novels, like Creepy and Eerie, those graphic novels. But I really became fascinated with special effects and particularly makeup after your work.

Rick Baker (1:14)

Well, it's kind of the same thing for me. I mean, I grew up in... I was born in 1950 I grew up in front of a TV, but it was a little black and white one. And there was always the monster movies on Saturdays.

Or Sundays, and that stuff just hit a chord with me, and I just said, I have to do this.

Joe Rogan (1:32)

When did you... What was the first thing that you did?

Rick Baker (1:35)

First ever makeup kind of thing I did? Well, I mean, I'm an only child.

My mom wasn't supposed to have kids because she had a bad heart and stuff, but they wanted children.

But I was very shy. I stayed in my bedroom. I couldn't talk to an adult and stuff like that. The very first thing... 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.

Joe Rogan (2:10)

Wow.

Rick Baker (2:11)

And it just, it helped me overcome my shyness. But I mean, it started with that, but I wanted to do something more. So I ended up making...

I made my first mask, I think, when I was 13 And it was a cursa 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, there's some crudeness to that makeup. I've actually, at first didn't like it, but I like it now, you know? I mean, 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 forgive some of the faults with it.

Joe Rogan (2:51)

Well, it's great, when you stop and think about the earliest versions of makeup in movies, like special effects style makeup in movies, you know, you go back to, like Nosferatu is probably one of the very earliest, right?

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.

Rick Baker (3:09)

Yeah, and I mean, you know, the thing is, the Nosferatu is such a, I mean, it's a great film.

Joe Rogan (3:14)

It's a great film, still to this day.

Rick Baker (3:17)

Yeah, and the look, you know, I mean, it shouldn't work. By all, you know, it's like a big hook nose, you know, and like, you know, but it works great. And, but yeah, same thing. I mean, Lon Chaney had nothing to work with, you know, the spirit gum and cotton, and he did, to this day, some of the still, my favorite makeups and some of the best makeups. And I think the limitations in a lot of ways made the makeups work better, you know? I mean, now we can add so much stuff, and I find that happened 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 tiniest little bit of things that you do and let a lot of the humanity show through.