Rick Baker on Working With Michael Jackson on Thriller | Joe Rogan

And it happened on Thriller too. Because of American Werewolf, when Michael came to John Landis to do Thriller, he liked American Werewolf and he wanted it to be a short film. He didn't want to call it a music video. And John contacted me and said, you know, Michael Jackson wants to do this American Werewolf music video for the song Thriller, which I hadn't heard. And I was like, Michael Jackson, Little Michael Jackson, Jackson Five, yeah, he's not called that anymore. And so he goes, John says, I'll send you a cassette, listen to it and get some ideas. And this was when we had Little Walkman. And I listened to it with one. I had another one that I would like to pre-associate ideas when I was listening. And it was like, I thought, well, we came up with the idea of doing these zombie dancers. And I said, well, I'm sure you're going to hire the dancers way in advance so they can learn the dance and stuff. And he goes, no, they only need a couple of days. So they hired him like three days before we filmed. And I went, I can't. That doesn't give me time to take life masks and do all the stuff that I would do. And these zombies should be really cool. So I said, how about if the first zombies you see are like me and my crew, because we already have life masks, we can start those today and we can spend the time and making some cool. And I said, I'm going to do a film thriller coming out of a crypt like this. My crew basically are the first guys that come out of the ground and break through windows. But the dancers, I said, I'll figure out a way we can do them. And because I had a number of life masks to different people, I had small, medium, and large male, small, medium, and large female. And we sculpted, we kept pieces, we called them like bandit masks. They were kind of like this around this area, like a bandit. Right, around the eyes, like a raccoon mask. Yeah. And they had a nose on it because proportionally you could get away with more. So we had different sculptures of small, medium, large, male, small, medium, large, female, that we would just say, okay, you're a medium male number two. And we made these big teeth that we could pop in their mouth and put some dintralining material in fit them. So the dancer makeups were not as good as the more featured makeups. But Michael in the upper left hand corner, that one Jamie, with the eyes. Yeah, look at that. Like that was excellent. And again, we kept it that way. What happened is the zombies after that, everybody was just doing pieces like this. I only did it like that because of the limitations I had in that thing. But that was, I mean, that was another really quick job and very little money. Thriller was very little money? For me. It turned, I mean, they spent the money, they had a lot of cameras and a lot of stuff when they're filming. But I was working day and night, every day of the week to get this stuff done. John then surprised me with the making of Thriller on the day that Michael was coming out for us to take his life mask and make a cast of his face. He goes, oh, there's a big camera crew here, a couple of cameras and what are you talking about? And he goes, I want to do a making of. And I go, I was going, no. It's like, it always looks horrifying to see somebody having a life mask taken. And I go, I don't need, and Michael's really shy. I don't need, we don't need this. I don't, I don't, I don't want this. He goes, shut up. We're doing it. You know, it's like, fuck, you know, I'm not happy. I'm not happy about it. But then so many people have come up to me who are makeup artists now and go, the reason I'm a makeup artist is because I saw the making of Thriller and inspired me to do this. My stock answer is you thought that if this idiot could do it, I can do it. You know, kind of thing, you know. Well, there was a time where music videos were a new thing and then Thriller changed what a music video is. It was so huge. It was a world premiere event that was on MTV and it's so hard for kids today to understand what that means, but we were all like gathered around the TV waiting for the Michael Jackson Thriller world premiere and it premiered and it changed what a music video is. Then all of a sudden it became this film and it was really cool because like Michael Jackson was this sweet guy and he's on a date with this beautiful girl and, and the next thing you know, he's a fucking werecat or whatever he was. Was that supposed to be a cat? Like what? Yeah, I, he wanted to be a werewolf and I just thought, you know, I don't think he should be a werewolf and I thought something feline would be fit him better, you know. And I originally did a like a black panther and then I was afraid of the black panther, you know, I didn't want him to be associated with the black panthers. You know what I mean? The political part. Yeah. So I then became more of fantasy. I gave it longer hair and like white stripes. See if you find his transformation to the cat because it was reminiscent and somewhat of American, American werewolf, but cool and unique in its own way. I didn't know. We didn't, we didn't have the time to, you know, I wasn't sure what it was. I was like, is that a cat? Is it a werewolf? Is that a, what is that? Well, that's what people call a werewolf. Sometimes people call the cat. I say, you know, yeah, I just, you know, thought it was cool looking, you know, it was definitely cool looking or whatever it was. But you know what happened? I mean, the Thriller was like work, work, work, work, work. And originally it was going to be my, my crew were going to be the guys that do the makeups and they were all non-union. And at the last minute it became a union production. So I had to hire union makeup artists and there were many to do the dancers and many of them were people I didn't know. And there weren't a lot of people that were good at this stuff. Yeah. That's, again, we had little bladders in his hand. There's actually an American werewolf hand in here at one point, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. You had a leftover hand? Yeah. Yeah. And then you did a similar thing with the ears. Yeah. And then he had the whiskers. Yeah. Yeah. It's like... Yeah, it's before his hair grew a little bit silly. Yeah, but when you look at that, like, what is that? Yeah. Is that a cat? Whatever it is, it's cool. Yeah. But he, it was an amazing experience because, you know, I was like I said, I was really stressed out the day that we were filming the dancers and I was, I had to make up Michael as a zombie. I had a number of makeup artists I didn't even know and had worked before with before that were doing other zombies and I'm running through trailers going, no, no, no. Like this, you know, and then making up Michael and it's like, oh man. And we were filming in Vernon, downtown Los Angeles next to the Farmer John meat packing place. And they had just slaughtered the animals and it had this weird smell in the air. Oh, Jesus. And then the dance started and I, all of a sudden it just like this wave went over me of just, the stress went away and I just was looking at what was happening in front of me and it was going, oh my God, look at this, you know, and people would pay money to see this and I get to see this. Yeah. And I saw the Swirl of Dance happening when it, you know, for the first time there, you know, when it was being filmed. How many times did they shoot it? Not that many, I don't think, but there were, I think there was six cameras on it, you know, the whole street, you know, friend that was filled with cameras. But the other thing that was so cool about it, that was one of the dancer makeups. That Michael, when we were doing in pre-production, Michael did a Motown special that was on television where he moonwalked for the first time and nobody had seen the moonwalk. And I didn't see it. I was busy working and, but one of my crew who went home at night and recorded it and he goes, you're not going to believe this is the same kid that was in our makeup chair the other day. Because Michael was very shy as well, really meek and quiet in person. And he's so dynamic on stage, you know, and it was, he's like two different people. I mean, when Michael's performing, he's incredible, you know. He was a, I mean, to say he was unique is the biggest understatement in the history of the world. Yeah. But this whole scene with him when he becomes a zombie, it was so bizarre too. Like even the dancing was so strange, you know, it was cool though. Oh, it was really cool. And to see it live for the first time, you know, out in the cold with it. They don't do anything like this anymore. I mean, really it doesn't happen.