Rick Baker and Joe Rogan Nerd Out Over Horror Classic "Nosferatu"

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, were 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, and 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, those fantasy novels, like Creepy and Eerie, those graphic novels. But I really became fascinated with special effects and particularly makeup after your work. Well, it's kind of the same thing for me. 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. 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. When did you, what was the first thing that you did? First ever makeup kind of thing I did? 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. 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. I could do things that I couldn't do without this shit smeared on my face. It helped me overcome my shyness. It started with that, but I wanted to do something more. So I made my first mask, I think, when I was 13. It was a curse of Frankenstein. I did that one mainly because I thought I could copy that one and make it look close enough because there's some crudeness to that makeup. I actually, at first didn't like it, but I like it now. When you find out how the film industry works, and poor Philip Leakey who did that makeup had a week to prep and no money. I forgive some of the faults with it. You stop and think about the earliest versions of makeup in movies, like special effects style makeup in movies. You go back to like Nosferatu, it was probably one of the very earliest. They really didn't have anything to go with. There wasn't anything to copy. They kind of had to make it up. The thing is that Nosferatu is such a ... I mean, it's a great film. It's a great film. Still to this day. Yeah. The look, it shouldn't work. It's like a big hook nose, but it works great. Yeah, same thing. Lon Chaney had nothing to work with. Spirit gum and cotton. He did, to this day, some of my favorite makeups and some of the best makeups. I think the limitations in a lot of ways made the makeups work better. Now we can add so much stuff. I find that happens so much now with that Face Off show and stuff. It's more about how much can you pile on someone's face. 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 Phantom of the Opera? Great makeup. Yeah. That's terrific. Chaney was just brilliant, and great at making scary faces. That's how I learned to make scary faces, watching Chaney movies. He's another one. There was not much for him to go on. He was kind of like a pioneer, for sure. Again, like I said, still some of my favorite makeups. That and Jack Pierce's Frankenstein's Monster. Again, crude materials. Poor Boris Karloff, what he had to endure. None of the makeups he did on Boris were comfortable with cotton and spirit gum and collodion. I don't know if you know, you might know collodion, just because of your fight background kind of stuff, but it's a plastic. They used to use it to close up a boxer's wounds and stuff. It's like kind of this liquid plastic, but it smells horrible and to be working around someone's eyes with his fumes and stuff. He had to put up with a lot. It's kind of like a glue? Yeah, it's kind of a liquidy plastic-y stuff. He pulled up a video of Nosferatu. What year was that? 20, I don't know what. 1922? That's crazy. Yeah. You stop and think about that film itself had only been how old then? Yeah, not very. Not very. Yeah, it's- CB didn't 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, he was beautifully shot. I mean, so many of the silent films, I mean, the photography is so incredible. I mean, I wonder how, what they did with the fingers. How did they get his fingers? Well, I think those are just his hands at this point. I mean, later, I mean, in like the John Barrymore, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I remember reading in Famous Monsters, which was again, like my Bible. Did you get Famous Monsters at all? Yes. Oh yeah, you said creepy, and you know. Sure. They said, John Barrymore did the whole transformation without makeup, and it's not true. He's got finger extensions on, kind of like a pointed back of a head. But yeah, it's Nasserat too, brilliant. So what did they do for his ears, do you know? Well, I'm not sure what they were made out of. Same with the bald head. I mean, I know rubber existed then. I mean, you can kind of, I mean, he's got, I think it's probably just like a slip rubber, which is like, you know, Halloween masks are made out of ears and bald head and nose. Yeah, some sort of prosthetic nose, right? Yeah, and those big pointy teeth. And again, I mean, if you really kind of analyze it and look at it, you think this is stupid, it'll never work, you know, but it works great. And I also think it's because Max Schreck was great, you know, 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. Well, I freak out just because there's not somebody in my house anyway. Yeah, someone smiling would freak out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.