By Michael Martin
Michael is an entertaining, revealing film that documents Michael Jackson’s journey from growing up as a young boy in the steel town of Gary, Indiana, to success in Hollywood and beyond. The film charts his journey from his early success performing with his brothers as the Jackson 5, under the iron-fisted management of their father, Joe Jackson, to his emergence as one of the greatest solo pop stars of all time.
A powerful team of creative artists came together to create this intimate look at Michael Jackson’s life. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (The Replacement Killers, The Magnificent Seven, Tears of the Sun, Training Day, and The Equalizer films) and produced by Academy Award-winning producer Graham King (Bohemian Rhapsody, Dark Shadows, World War Z) and shot by Academy Award-winning director of photography Dion Beebe (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Collateral, The Little Mermaid), Michael stars Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, and introduces Jaafar Jackson as Michael.
Academy Award-winning makeup artist Bill Corso (Deadpool and Wolverine, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Terminator: Dark Fate), Academy Award-nominee and fellow prosthetic designer Christien Tinsley (Westworld, American Horror Story, The Passion of the Christ), and hair designer Academy Award-nominee Carla Farmer (Bob Marley: One Love, Coming 2 America, Grey's Anatomy), were responsible for turning Jaafar into an amazing likeness of Michael Jackson throughout the 1970s and 1980s. SWSCA co-founder Matt Winston caught up with the busy Corso to talk with him about their stunning work on Michael.
(SWSCA co-founder Matt Winston and Michael makeup artist/prosthetic designer Bill Corso.)
Jump To Section
- Finding Michael
- The First Test
- Second Tests
- The Michael Makeup & Hair Crew
- The First Michael Look
- Michael’s Nose
- Michael’s Skin Tone
- The Second Michael Makeup
- Materials Old and New
- The Third Michael Makeup
- Contouring and Shading
- The Joe Jackson Makeup
- Joe’s Later Years
- Michael Jackson’s Thriller
- Going Old School with Zombies
- Playing Rick Baker
- Final Thoughts & The Future of Makeup
Finding Michael
Michael producer Graham King was already familiar with bringing a musician’s life to the big screen, having produced Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic about Freddie Mercury and Queen. To create the makeup for their lead, Graham reached out to Bill Corso.
Bill emphasized the difficulties of creating a likeness makeup, especially for someone so famous. When he initially heard about the project, his first thought was that it was a near-impossible task. King considered actors, look-alikes, and impersonators, trying to find someone with just the right spark to portray the iconic singer. “When I first met with Graham... he showed me a couple of possibilities and then mentioned this wild card idea he had… he goes, ‘I don't know if it's gonna work. There's something really amazing about it.' He showed me Jaafar Jackson [Jermaine Jackson's son and Michael's nephew] and asked me, ‘What do you think? What are your thoughts visually?’”
(Jaafar Jackson. Image courtesy Jackson Source/Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
The First Test
The challenge of taking the features of one person and transforming them believably into those of another would be no simple task. Bill said, “I played with a lot of Photoshop designs.” After seeing these ideas, producer King asked what Bill thought they should do next. The makeup artist suggested, “I would do a test, see what it looks like.” He continued, “I'm thinking, in my head, just to do a test, one makeup look on him. And then we started talking. And that one test became three or four different looks to encompass the major Michael Jackson looks in the movie.” To help create the prosthetics for this first test, Bill enlisted the help of his prosthetic partner on Deadpool & Wolverine, Andy Clement, and his shop Creative Character Engineering. Acclaimed cinematographer Bob Richardson shot the test makeup and sent the footage to director Antoine Fuqua, who had worked with Richardson on Equalizer 3. Bill said Fuqua’s response was, “Why are you sending me videos of Michael?” Needless to say, the test was a success.
(A series of Photoshop concepts prepared by Bill Corso to depict Jaafar Jackson's key looks for his portrayal of his uncle Michael Jackson. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
Even though Bill had some changes he wanted to make, the strength of the first test gave everyone on the team, from Jaafar to King to Fuqua, the confidence that Corso’s approach would, indeed, work.
Second Tests
Pleased with the initial results of the test, Bill still had some doubts. He laughed, “Being the artist that I am, that so many of us are, I was not satisfied because I thought that it could be so much better. I could see now the potential of it.”
Since Bill would soon be leaving to work on Deadpool & Wolverine, he asked to do a second set of makeup tests on Jaafar. “[The producers] all agreed to put up the money and do a complete second battery of tests," said Bill. At this point, Andy Clement was so busy with the workload prepping for Deadpool & Wolverine that Bill enlisted Christien Tinsley and his shop Tinsley Studio to help execute all the prosthetics that would be needed for Jaafar for this second test and onward. "And this time they brought in our actual DP, Academy Award-winner Dion Beebe (The Little Mermaid, Edge of Tomorrow, Equilibrium). He shot [the second test], and Antoine was able to come and be there for it.”
Bill said about these early tests, “It kind of satisfied a lot of things. It was much closer to what the final looks are. Initially, there were four main looks in the movie. There are now three main looks in this movie. But within those three main looks, there are almost 30 versions.”
“We really tried to stay true to Michael, but if you look at Michael and follow his chronology visually, he changes. He changed his look every time you saw him. Hair, makeup, eyebrows. I mean, there's so much to his face, and what he did that made him so identifiable and iconic, one of the most identifiable personalities in the world, that it was very important to us to stay as true to that as possible. So, there were so many different versions of each look.”
The Michael Makeup & Hair Crew
Bill doesn’t hesitate to praise his fellow artists in bringing the Michael makeups to life. "I had an amazing team. As I already mentioned, Andy Clement and his shop Creative Character Engineering helped me on the very first series of tests, but Andy was so busy on Deadpool & Wolverine that I brought in Christien Tinsley and his shop Tinsley Studio to help me with all the prosthetic work [for the film]. Throughout the process, Christien and I worked very closely together, with me starting some of the sculptures and Christien taking them the extra mile with his incredible team of artists. And I was blessed to have Carla Farmer, who was the hair department head." Bill noted the hairwork was crucial to the success of the makeup. “It was very important to us to make sure that it was done as good as it could be done. And Carla, like myself, we always looked at something and always tried to improve it. Between the three of us, [Bill, Christien, and Carla], we crafted everything that we needed.”
The First Michael Look
To represent Michael Jackson during his younger years in the 1970s, Bill said, “Christien and I decided to make him younger and look a little fuller in the face. We had some very subtle cheek prosthetics to fill out [Jaafar's] face to make him more baby-faced, to match what Michael looked like at the time. In doing that, it allowed us to make his skin a little rougher, you know? 'Cause Michael struggled with acne and some rough skin at that time. Although it was later decided not to play that up. We decided to refine it for the film. We didn't want it to be jarring or distracting.” To complete this early Michael look, Bill continued, “He has the big afro, and he's got very natural, soft eyebrows, and then he has his original nose.”
(Jaafar Jackson in his "First Michael Look". Image courtesy Lionsgate. Photo credit: Glen Wilson.)
Michael’s Nose
This first makeup would also feature a nose appliance designed to replicate Michael's original, pre-rhinoplasty nose. What some may not know, Bill said, is that Michael was very concerned with his appearance: “A lot of Michael's perception about his face was started from his father... [who] thought his nose was too big. He was very self-conscious about it being too big.”
Bill continued, “It was very important to Christien and me to get the nose shapes as close as possible to Michael's. Now, here's the problem. Jaafar's face is very different structurally from Michael's. Jaafar's got a much longer face. He's a very good-looking man, but he’s structurally completely the opposite of Michael.” Bill explained, “Michael's face was much smaller. His eyes were big for his facial proportions. He had a very small chin. Jaafar has a very long chin, and Michael's nose was much smaller on his face, even though it seemed big. He had a much smaller face, and flatter.”
(A couple of the nose appliance sculpts for the Michael Jackson makeups. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
“The same with the nose. To put Michael's nose on Jaafar, when we first did, it was way too big because of the size of Jaafar's face. So, Christien and I had to try and scale it down.” Bill revealed, “All of the prosthetic noses in the movie are digitally augmented because of the fact that Jaafar's nose sticks out so much farther than Michael's. Even the large nose was flattened a little bit to help with profiles. It makes a big difference. That little subtle detail made a big difference.”
Bill complimented the show’s digital crew, “Louis Morin, our visual effects supervisor, and all the different VFX houses that worked on it really did a great job. I was really happy that they pulled that off 'cause there's a lot of stuff going on there.”
Bill expanded on other things that were done to bring Jaafar’s appearance closer to that of his uncle’s, “A lot was done makeup-wise to try and cheat the width of the hair. Everything was done to kind of help balance all that out. It may not be exact to Michael, but it helped us try to create a little closer approximation of what Michael's look was.”
Michael’s Skin Tone
Part of the success of the makeup was maintaining Michael’s skin tones across the years, “His complexion was much darker when he was younger. Jaafar has a very warm caramel complexion," Bill said. "So, we adjusted his skin tone depending on where Michael was at and always tried to remain true to who Michael was." Bill gave Christien and his team credit for coming up with the perfect intrinsic color for all the appliances so that the makeup would read properly on Jaafar. "That was key, you know, to see the evolution of the vitiligo (a condition that can cause lighter patches on the skin) and how his complexion changed. That was all very key.”
The Second Michael Makeup
(Jaafar Jackson in makeup as Michael Jackson and director Antoine Fuqua confer during the shooting of the 'Beat It' music video scene in Michael. Image courtesy Lionsgate. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson.)
From the young Michael look of the 1970s, Michael’s makeup moved into the 1980s. Bill said, “The second main look goes into the early eighties where we start to get the more distinctive Thriller-era look.” Bill elaborated on the changes made from the first makeup, “[Michael] started grooming his eyebrows. So one of the things we added, which I just thought of as an idea and tried it and wound up being so successful, was a partial eyebrow block, which was a transfer that would block out the lower part of [Jaafar's] brows to give him the nice high arch, thereby allowing us to use his own eyebrows.”
“Now, here's the other thing about Jaafar. His eyebrows are much thinner and much higher than Michael's. So, he always wore little lace eyebrow additions to lower his eyebrows in the younger years. I just had a front section to lower the front, so it would give him a nice high arch. And it was really successful. I mean, it's one of those things you don't really think about, but it works great."
Bill continued, “Another thing we did was his ears are exposed more in this look, and Jaafar's ears stick out. So, we had... little foam cushions behind them that allowed us to pin the ears back, so he had a similar silhouette to Michael."
(Jaafar Jackson in the 'Beat It' era Michael Jackson makeup. Image courtesy Lionsgate. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson.)
Bill and Christien would build on this second makeup by adding another prosthetic piece: “The first version of this [second] makeup doesn't have a chin, but as soon as we hit the Thriller era, we added a chin piece.” Bill said that around this time, Michael’s "chin shape changed dramatically. It became much squarer. So, Christien and I added a very subtle prosthetic chin that gave Jaafar Michael's very signature shape... in addition to a new nose." Bill emphasized how great Christien and his team were about making adjustments to the prosthetics once production was already underway. "A couple of times I'd be on set and notice something that I thought could be improved, and I would relate that to Christien, and he would make the changes and have new pieces sent to me asap."
(Makeup Artists Bill Corso and Christien Tinsley with Jaafar Jackson. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
The nose appliance would change again after Michael’s first rhinoplasty. This is revealed when Joe Jackson sees his son after the surgery. “We had a couple of versions of the nose in the movie. You'll see he does the first nose change that his dad sees. Then he does a second one while he's writing the album (Thriller), because he gets a little bit more pinched and upturned,” Bill said. “It's very subtle in the movie. It's not as extreme as Michael's was. Again, Christien and I didn't want it to take away from his performance, you know, by being too drastic. So, it's a little subtler than Michael's actual nose was. He wears the nose; he wears the chin. The eyebrow covers always. His complexion slightly starts adjusting now. And then, of course, the wigs and hair pieces made a big difference.”
Materials Old and New
When asked about the materials used to create the Michael Jackson appliances for Jaafar, Bill replied, “Excellent question. So, the eyebrow pieces are transfers. The noses were silicone. The chins were silicone, except for when he performed (the music and dance numbers). One of the big problems we had [was] every time Jaafar performed, it wasn't just, 'I'm gonna go do a little dance number.’ It was hardcore, just like Michael, dancing till his feet bled. And he would sweat like his uncle. If you watch videos of Michael, he's pouring sweat.”
“What I would do is, for a year before we started shooting, Jaafar would rehearse, and I would put pieces on him and a semblance of a makeup, and just watch him rehearse for 20 minutes, half an hour, and watch all of those pieces and makeup fall off his face.” Bill laughed, “And I tried everything. I tried sweat blockers and powders and powdering his face with zinc. I tried every trick that we know of to try and mitigate the sweat.”
“Of course, I would tell him, ‘Look, in the movie, it'll be different because you'll do a take and then we'll cool you down, and we'll do another take. And, you know, it'll never be like a whole song all the way through and take after take,’ which, by the way, is exactly what we did.” Bill laughed again, “I was very concerned at this early point of how the makeups were gonna hold up 'cause I was not finding success during this testing period, and I knew it was gonna be an issue.”
While Bill was discussing the problem with friend and fellow makeup artist Mike Marino, a lightbulb came on: “Of course, why didn't I think of that?” Bill said Mike asked, “‘Why don't you just use foam rubber? Like we used to. That'll stay on.’ And I started thinking, yeah, of course it would. And rubber mask grease. Like, that's not going anywhere, you know? And so, Christien and I did a very old school foam rubber nose and foam rubber chin and painted him up with rubber mask grease. And after, you know, his hour of shooting or rehearsing, he looked great!
(Jaafar Jackson wore foam rubber appliances and rubber mask greasepaint for the performing sequences. Images courtesy Lionsgate. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson.)
Once the decision was made to go with foam for the dancing and performing sequences, Christien and his team at Tinsley Studio were instrumental in constructing those foam appliances for Jaafar. In fact, Christien supervised a whole separate set of sculptures just for the foam while Corso was on set. “So, the very first couple of weeks of the movie, we did all the performance stuff, and for all of that, he was wearing all foam rubber appliances and rubber mask greasepaint. Very old school. And luckily for me, Michael on stage was very theatrical. He was made up. I figured I could get away with being a little heavier-handed. And it held up. I mean, it never would've held up if it was silicone. It just wouldn't have held up.”
The Third Michael Makeup
The film then moves into the late 1980s, when Michael breaks away from his family and his father's influence during his final performance with The Jacksons. These scenes were shot at Wembley Stadium on the first two days of the shoot. Bill said, “That was really fun.”
He praised Jaafar for his two years of prep, rehearsal, and practice, “The guy never once complained. He was never in a bad mood, always positive, always on it. So professional. He set an example, not unlike Michael would've himself, which is what impressed everybody.”
(Here, Jaafar is seen during the application of the thinner nose and cleft chin appliances. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
About the third stage makeup, Bill said, “The makeup was cool. It was obviously a different wig, different silhouette, trying to match that exact performance. The way his hair is pinned back, the complexion of his skin... he's a little lighter now. The best I think Michael ever looked was that era. He had had the chin surgery where he had the little cleft put in his chin. So, Christien and I had a new chin for this look. We had a new nose, which was even smaller and more pinched. This is where digitally they really had fun with it and got to make the smaller pinched nose, which was just, it was just magical.”
(Jaafar Jackson in makeup and costume for the 'Bad' tour sequence in Michael. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
Contouring and Shading
(Bill Corso using an airbrush to refine the details of the Michael Jackson makeup on Jaafar Jackson. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
Bill pointed out how this Bad-era makeup was a great example of the extensive paintwork that the Michael makeups required, “A lot of people don't realize how much paintwork I did on his face. You know, little things that Jaafar, again, doesn't have that Michael does, little contours and shapes to his face, enhancing a lot of things that Michael had very strongly, like his jawline and his cheeks,” Bill continued, “the contouring of his eyes, 'cause Jaafar has got a very different eye shape. Michael has a half-moon crease under his eyes that Jaafar does not have at all. So that's always painted in and sculpted in. And, you know, the nose is constantly contoured. His forehead's very different. So, trying to shape and contour and highlight his forehead to look different, more like Michael's.”
Bill added that Jaafar also wore dentures: “He even had, for that look, he wears teeth. Christien and I actually started using upper dentures to kind of change the shape of his mouth a little bit. Michael had more of a protruding mouth area. So, it's here where we started using that, so there's quite a bit going on.”
The Joe Jackson Makeup
(Colman Domingo in the stunning Joe Jackson makeup for Michael. Image courtesy Lionsgate. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson)
Colman Domingo plays Joe Jackson, Michael’s father. The actor brought depth to a role that could easily have become a caricature, delivering a performance as convincing as the makeup and hair work that transformed him. Bill said, “As successful as Jaafar may have been, Colman to me is like the real jump. I mean, that's the transformation that really shocks people the most.”
Bill knew he, Christien, and Carla had their work cut out for them since Colman Domingo and Joe Jackson looked nothing alike. "I thought long and hard about it, and I talked to Christien at length about it, and then I'm like, 'I'm gonna sketch it out and then we'll look at it.'" Bill started by sketching the two different looks required for the film. “I did sketches of [Colman & Joe], comparing both their faces. The idea was, because Colman's got a shorter nose, we thought we'd lengthen his nose by adding a little nose tip. And the biggest thing is, Joe has a very specific brow, you know, a heavy forehead, heavy brow. And I thought, well, what if we gave some of that to Colman by putting a little forehead piece with brows and changing the shape of his eyebrows, 'cause Joe's eyebrow is very specific, very iconic.”
(Proposed makeup design for Joe Jackson. The lower row of photos is of the real Joe. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
To complete the look for Joe Jackson, Bill said Colman wore hairpieces, hazel contact lenses, and a lighter complexion. “It was adjusting everything just slightly, to see if we could bridge the gap between the two. At the time we had two versions of Joe. We had the very young Joe in the 60s. And then we had a later Joe look, we had a 70s, 80s, Joe look.”
Bill is always ready to recognize the work of the makeup artists working with him. “To Christien's credit, he took my initial design and completely sculpted it from scratch, turning it into a beautiful three-dimensional prosthetic. Christien did the test makeup for Joe 'cause I was busy with Jaafar. And I brought in Mo Meinhart, who's a brilliant prosthetic artist who had just won an Emmy for Pam & Tommy, and Colman's makeup artist, Jamie Richmond. The trio of them.”
(A good look at the appliances involved for the Joe Jackson test makeup. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
“But it was mainly Christien and Mo that [did the] first Joe test... the younger look with the afro and everything, and walked him on the set."
(Christien Tinsley and Mo Meinhart apply the first test makeup for Joe Jackson. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
And to Bill’s surprise, “Antoine was like, 'We're putting him on camera today.' He was not scheduled to shoot. This was a camera test.” But Antoine stood firm, “He's going on camera.” Bill explained that the scene they shot that day was the one in which Joe Jackson sees Michael on stage when he delivers a speech about that performance being his last concert with The Jacksons. “You know those days where you have that first reaction where people see somebody for the first time in a makeup? And Antoine and Graham were like, ‘Oh my God.’ They couldn't believe it. Prince Jackson (Michael’s son) had a similar reaction when he saw Domingo in makeup, saying, “Oh my God, that's my grandpa.'”
Joe’s Later Years
(The later Joe Jackson makeup created by Bill Corso and crew. It was accomplished with the same appliances used for the younger Joe. Image: Lionsgate. Source: Michael IMDb Gallery)
Bill and Christien continued to use the same silicone appliances on Domingo for Joe Jackson’s later years represented in the film, “It's the same pieces, slightly different versions of eyebrows, colorations, paint scheme as we went on. Obviously different wigs, but basically the same pieces, the forehead and the nose. We made slight adjustments for the later looks. He's wearing all silicone. It was just beautiful, and a true testament to Christien's skill and ability.”
Michael Jackson’s Thriller
No, we didn’t forget Thriller. “So, there's this little scene in the movie called Thriller,” Bill laughed, “The single defining moment for many fans of Michael's career.”
(Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in zombie makeup for the Thriller music video segment of Michael. Image courtesy Lionsgate. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson)
Directed by John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Coming to America), Thriller would become one of the most influential music videos ever made. It had everything: Michael Jackson performing a hit song, transforming into a were-cat, and then dancing with a bunch of zombies, all featuring prosthetic makeup by Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London, Harry and the Hendersons, Men in Black) and most of his American Werewolf crew!
(Jaafar Jackson and Antoine Fuqua preparing for a night of recreating Thriller on location. Image: Lionsgate. Source Michael IMDb Gallery.)
Going Old School with Zombies
(Jaafar as Michael with a whole horde of zombies made to look like the original Thriller dancers. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate. Photo credit: Glen Wilson)
Bill reached out to Academy Award-winner Rick Baker to find out what had been done on the original video so many years ago. “This is the highlight of the movie for me, being a kid who grew up on the ‘Making of Thriller.’ It was such a magical thing to recreate that. And it was so important to Christien and me that we do it exactly like it was done then.” Bill revealed about the appliances used, “No silicone. Everything was old school."
Bill recalled they had one day to shoot the recreation of the Thriller music video. For the makeup artists working that night, “Christien made these beautiful kits for everybody with their little vacuform prosthetic bases and their foam face appliances and their little mouth goo, you know, their black goo and the effects colors and mouth colors.”
(Makeup artists Howard Berger, Ve Neill and Richie Alonzo apply retro zombie makeups for the one-night Thriller shoot. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
(Bill Corso, in makeup and costume as Rick Baker, turns Jaafar Jackson into the Michael Jackson dancing zombie. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
(Bill Corso, Jaafar Jackson, Carla Farmer, and Christien Tinsley. Image courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
“It was so much fun for everybody to recreate all the [Thriller] zombies. And Michael's was the same. Christien and I did 'em all with foam, with his nose, his chin, his zombie makeup, all with RMG (rubber mask greasepaint). No silicone like all these great prosthetics or makeups we have now. And what was really great was talking to Rick, who was so sweet about giving us little tips and everything. We literally did exactly what Rick did. I mean, as close as we could. He told us exactly the colors he used. There was an aqua color that he had mixed into castor oil to make an RMG out of it. And that's what he used as the base kind of color for Michael.” At the end, Bill, always the perfectionist, said, “We did it once. Had I done a test of it, I would've changed 10 things.”
(Appliance sculpture for the Michael Jackson zombie makeup and Bill Corso, as Rick Baker, touching up Jaafar on set. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
Bill said about re-creating Thriller, “It was probably the greatest single day of shooting that any of us have ever been witness to, because you were experiencing something from your childhood. Being a kid who grew up on the ‘Making of Thriller,’ you know, not DVD, but a VHS tape that we all wore to death. Even Rick, who was visiting that night, said, ‘…it was like being in a time machine.’ Like it was exactly the same. You had the music, you're on the actual street. It was just magical. It really was.”
(A young Bill Corso applying his own Thriller-inspired zombie makeup on a friend. Image courtesy Bill Corso.)
Playing Rick Baker
(The original Thriller makeup artist Rick Baker visits the Michael set to find Bill Corso made up as Rick circa 1982 for his cameo in the movie. L - Rick and Bill. R - Bill, Jaafar, and Rick. Images courtesy Bill Corso/Lionsgate.)
Could it get any better for Bill? Yes, yes, it could. One of Bill Corso’s favorite moments while working on Michael and the recreation of the Thriller video was when he got to portray the legendary Rick Baker. Bill said, “There was a throwaway line in the original script about ‘A makeup artist touches up Michael.’ And I go, no, no, no. I go, it's not a makeup artist, it is Rick Baker, and if anybody's playing Rick Baker, it's me.” To Bill’s surprise, producer Graham and director Antoine agreed. “What a treat,” Bill said. “'Cause when Rick came by, and he walked into the trailer and saw me all made up, he just laughed his head off.” Bill fondly recalled the opportunity he was given, “You gotta do it, right?”
Final Thoughts & The Future of Makeup
After seeing the success of Michael and the beautiful makeups Bill and his crew created, Matt Winston asked for Bill's thoughts about the future of prosthetic makeup in the age of digital and AI. Bill replied, “First of all, I'd love to end by pointing out that ultimately the success of this project is solely because of the amazing team we put together, with Christien, Carla, myself, and a wonderful crew of talented artists. That's what made all the looks in Michael so successful," Bill continued, "To your question, I don't know if actual makeup ever goes away. There will always be actors, directors, and filmmakers who just love it so much. There's such a purity and a magic to that practical transformation.” Bill does see a future where many things are done digitally, but also an opportunity for creative makeup artists, “What is important is just inspiring people to do great work and have fun and that we all get to enjoy it. So, that's kind of my take.”
(Michael poster. Image courtesy Lionsgate.)