Few actors have done quite as many roles in film and television while wearing prosthetic makeup as Doug Jones. From his role as the “Amphibian Man” in the Best Picture Winner The Shape of Water, to his current role as Commander Saru on Star Trek: Discovery, Jones has an uncanny knack for delivering strong performances while hidden under piles of makeup.
Now, with it being Emmy season, CBS TV Studios has released a stunning time-lapse video of Jones having his makeup applied as a “For Your Consideration” for the Star Trek: Discovery prosthetic makeup design team of Alchemy Studios’ Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page. Page designed and produced the makeup used for Saru, while Jimmy Mackinnon is the artist in charge of the team that applies the makeup to Jones and other actors wearing prosthetics every day.
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They say it takes a village, and that is 100% accurate. Check out this video of #StarTrekDiscovery’s Saru being brought to life. #StarTrekFYC #CBSTVStudiosFYC
🖖🌟@jimmymackinnon @glenn_hetrick @nevillepage pic.twitter.com/fmUCGWFF4N— CBS TV Studios (@CBSTVStudios) June 21, 2018
This video is an amazing testament to the grueling process that both actors and makeup artists go through when they begin their day. The makeup experience is a unique one, in the sense that the actors and the makeup artists are, in effect, trapped together in a room for hours on end. Hetrick, then, notes that on some projects, that means that the makeup trailer is a hot zone for gossip and complaining:
“[O]ne of the cancers of the makeup trailer is that it becomes a rumor mill and a very negative environment. When you’re in the makeup trailer and you have all these people talking about the people who were on the movie they just did and how horrible they were and how horrible that producer is, and how horrible that actor is — that really starts to degenerate the spirit of the makeup trailer.” So, Hetrick goes out of his way to find positive people, like Mackinnon, who make the experience as pleasant and as uplifting as it can be.
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Jones is best known for his work with director Guillermo del Toro (including the aforementioned The Shape of Water, but also Abe Sapien in the two Hellboy movies and Faun and the Pale Man in Pan’s Labrynth), but for a guy who has done so much acting in prosthetic makeup, it is somewhat shocking that this is the first time that he has been a character in a Star Trek series.
Jones went back in to the makeup chair in April for Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, set to debut some time in 2019.