‘I’ve always been fond of hairy creatures!’ Visual effects maestro Rick Baker on a monstrously good career

Rick Baker helped define Hollywood’s creature features with his wild makeup effects skills. From Locarno, he talks Gremlins, his love of simians– and why AI will never replace expert design When Rick Baker was 22 years old and laying the first bricks of what would become one of the great Hollywood careers, he travelled to Hatra in Iraq with director William Friedkin to assist with Max von Sydow’s makeup on The Exorcist. “Oh, he was definitely a lunatic,” Baker recalls of Friedkin, his signat...

By Rory O'Connor