Gary Oldman convinced Kazuhiro Tsuji to transform the actor into Winston Churchill for "Darkest Hour"; "Black Panther" is a phenomenon before it even opens; “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” (To Cross the Face of the Moon) is believed to be the first mariachi opera.
Watch this makeup artist turn Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill
Think of Winston Churchill. How do you see him? If you're imagining something like a baby in a top hat, you're not alone.
In a scene from the Oscar-nominated film "The Darkest Hour," Prime Minister Churchill, played by Gary Oldman, meets some fellow Britons riding the London Underground, including a woman with an infant:
CHURCHILL: "How old?"
WOMAN: "Five months, sir. He looks like you."
CHURCHILL: "Madam, all babies look like me."
One person who Winston Churchill really does not look like is Gary Oldman. To visually transform Oldman into Churchill, it took the work of three special effects makeup artists, all of whom are nominated for an Academy Award.
Among them is Kazuhiro Tsuji. His film work includes “Norbit” and “Men in Black.” But in 2012 he walked away from Hollywood to focus on his fine art. He's a hyperrealist sculptor who uses materials like silicone and hair to create eerily life-like sculptures of people such as Andy Warhol and Abraham Lincoln.
When The Frame visited Tsuji at his Boyle Heights studio, he showed us his life-size body cast of Gary Oldman and some of the facial prosthetics (also called "appliances") that he made to transform Oldman for “The Darkest Hour.”
Tsuji explained that they were just a fraction of what he needed for the movie. For 48 days of filming, 48 different sets of appliances were needed. Once they were taken off, the fine edge that attached to the skin was ruined, so they couldn't be reused.
Tsuji first met Oldman in 2000 when the actor was considering a role in "Planet of the Apes." In 2016, Oldman sent him an email about "The Darkest Hour."
Tsuji talked to The Frame host John Horn about why he wanted to take the job and why it ended up being such a challenge.
Interview highlights:
On his decision to get back into movie makeup for "Darkest Hour":
Gary [Oldman] said, I want you to do the makeup. But if you're not available, I'll give up the opportunity to make this film. It wasn't in a threatening way, he was just explaining the situation. So I asked him, "Can I think about if for a while? I will get back to you in a week." I wanted to think about it because I made a decision to quit film jobs and that was kind of a life decision. And I didn't want to just easily go back because it was a kind of serious decision. But the reason why I started special effects makeup was that I was inspired by the makeup done by Dick Smith to turn Hal Holbrook into Abraham Lincoln. And I never had a chance to work on this kind of film in my whole career because most of the movies I worked on were sci-fi or horror. And I felt like this could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work on this kind of film, so I said yes.
On the challenges involved in turning Oldman into Churchill:
After I took a life-size cast and body scan on the photographs of Gary, I started to sculpt the features of Churchill on Gary's face. But it wasn't easy, especially his eyes. Gary's eyes are closer to each other and Churchill's are wider apart. So, if I build up on the sides of his face to make his face look rounder, that makes his eyes proportionally go even closer. I had to figure out how to balance the difference and still make him look like Churchill, but with movable makeup. So at first we did three different versions of test makeup that [director Joe Wright] requested. And I learned a lot from that and we did another two a month later to refine it. It wasn't going to be a perfect duplicate of Churchill, so we had to find a place where everyone felt Okay, this is Churchill. Because it's just simply impossible to make Gary look exactly like Winston Churchill.
On how he recreated the look and texture of Churchill's hair:
What we did was used really fine lace for the wig, the finest we could use. We also used baby European hair, which is the finest human hair we could get, and also mixed with Angora hair. Churchill, when he was young, used to have ginger hair. As he got older, his hair got thinner and whiter, finer. We used those hairs to make a wig. It's called "European Baby Hair." I guess some people sell it after it grows some length. It's quite expensive actually because it's rare and hard to get it.
On his experience watching the film for the first time:
It was amazing. It was a rough cut, I was watching it at Universal [Studios] with Gary. As soon as the movie started, of course I was paying attention to the makeup. But probably 10 minutes after the characters showed up, I started to forget about the makeup and I started to forget about Gary because he just disappeared and became Churchill. It's kind of rare. Sometimes when I watch a film I cringe if there's something wrong with [the makeup]. But Gary's acting — he's just amazing. He can just disappear and become someone else. I was drawn into the story. I couldn't say anything after, I was just amazed.
On the satisfaction of recreating a real, historical character as opposed to a fictional creature:
Generally, I like a human face better than monsters and creatures. I don't intentionally take those jobs if I don't have to. Because I'm not so interested in it. It's a creative job and it's fun to create fantasy characters, but what I enjoy most is human faces.
On whether special effects will make makeup effects extinct one day:
Many people say that. Like computers taking over everything, but I don't believe so. My job should be invisible and it has to be something that, until I explain, they won't notice. But I've also been involved in computer jobs, like "Benjamin Button." And I'm still working with computers too, but I still love to touch actual, physical objects. I'd rather keep working with physical objects than something created in a box. I actually don't like the outcome of something created in a box. I think the best way to feel is something existing in front of your eyes. It's just like a human interaction. It's better to have someone in front of you rather than somewhere else.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
A timely mariachi opera about the border and identity
In Washington this week, the U.S. Senate tried to pass some type of immigration bill that the President would not veto. The seemingly non-stop fight is still largely about building that wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and what to do about the DACA-recipients — the Dreamers.
While the drama on Capitol Hill continues, a ripped-from-the-headlines opera about immigration hits the stage here in Southern California. It’s called “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna,” or “To Cross the Face of the Moon.”
If you stop to imagine what the face of the moon might be like, your mind probably conjures a harsh, dry landscape that’s as beautiful as it is barren. That is the desert that separates the U.S. from Mexico. And this opera is about a fictional Latino family divided by that patch of scorching sand.
We meet an old man named Laurentino at his modern-day home in Texas. On the verge of death, he’s surrounded by his Mexican-American family. In his younger days, he crossed the border from Mexico with a friend in search of work in America. And before his body and mind completely fail, he takes us on one last trip down memory lane, flashing back to happier times in his Mexican village.
Daniel Rodriguez plays Laurentino. Rodriguez says: “We’re forgetting sometimes that we are all immigrants. In the news, you see people who speak about immigration like they are above it.”
For the past few weeks, Rodriguez and his castmates have been rehearsing the opera at The Soraya, a beautiful, new performing arts center on the Cal State Northridge campus. What makes this opera special is that it’s believed to be the first time Mexican mariachi music takes center stage in this classically European art-form.
Jose "Pepe" Martinez Jr. is the musical director. Martinez is a member of Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, one of the oldest mariachi dynasties in Mexico — 120 years old to be exact. He’s stepping in for his late father, Jose "Pepe" Martinez Sr., who composed this opera about 10 years ago, based on a complete libretto written by Broadway director Leonard Foglia.
“I shared with him my idea at the time," Foglia says. "I wanted to explore the notion of ‘home.’ Where is ‘home’? When I was living in Mexico and here in the states, I saw how divided people were about where their home was — all these families that were split up.”
Several years later, Foglia points out that the story of immigration between our two countries continues both on and off the stage. It’s a sentiment echoed without hesitation for cast member Juan Mendoza.
“Hijole!” sighs Mendoza when asked about personal connections to the story. He plays Chucho, a friend who crosses the border with Laurentino.
Mendoza says many people will understand this story. In the opera, we learn that Chucho and Laurentino leave behind their wives and children. In real life, Mendoza faced the same tough choices. He's a well-known mariachi singer in Mexico, like his dad before him. That means lot of travel and time away from home.
One time, he says, he returned back to Mexico after a long stretch of traveling with his mariachi group, and his young son walked away from him. He didn’t recognize his own dad. That scared Mendoza. So, now the words he sings in the opera are filled with personal experience. That real life resonance is exactly what inspired librettist Foglia.
“I had to find my own way into it, you know, as a writer. I started thinking about my father,” explains Foglia. “The character of Laurentino is based very much on my father’s final days. My father was born in Italy and came here when he was 10 years old. We lived in the Italian area of Boston. When we moved, it was like ripping his roots out. Because there he spoke Italian all day, all his relatives were there and so his whole life he felt displaced. So I wanted to tell a more universal story about displacement.”
Foglia set part of the story near a monarch butterfly sanctuary in Mexico. He wanted to explore the metaphor of the monarchs who fly across man-made borders all the time.
Foglia says: “At nighttime, if there is a full-moon or at least a substantial moon, people can see the shadows of the butterflies crossing the face of the moon — and that’s really where the title came from.”
Foglia wants audiences to see themselves reflected onstage. In fact, this opera is the first in a trilogy of Mexican-American stories he’s developing.
This work was originally commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and has since played to packed houses from Phoenix to Paris. Here in Los Angeles, 15-members of the Mariachi Vargas will perform alongside an all-Californian cast.
For director Dan Guerrero, the time has come for telling more Latino stories like this.
“I tell the cast [that] we’re always glad to get a gig in our business, but sometimes it’s a gig that’s more than just a job. It’s something really special. This is important. Historic, actually.”
In the end, the Laurentino character passes away. And his son takes his ashes back home across the border.
Singer Suzanna Guzman, who plays Lupita — Chucho’s wife — says it ends just as it should.
“A butterfly has to fly!” says Guzman.
“Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” will be performed Feb. 16-18 at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts on the Cal State Northridge campus.
'Black Panther' is a cultural phenomenon even before it opens
Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie opens on Feb. 15, riding into sold-out theaters on a wave of positive reviews and a storm of think pieces.
It could gross more than $165 million over the long President's Day weekend, but a lot of people still don’t know much about the title character.
Here’s a little background on the story: Black Panther, AKA T’Challa, is the king of Wakanda, a secret African nation in the Marvel universe that safeguards a precious material called Vibranium — the secret to Black Panther's bulletproof outfit.
To learn more about Black Panther, The Frame spoke with
. He’s been a huge fan of the comic since he was five years old. He now covers race, ethnicity and demographics for the Associated Press.
Black Panther first appeared in 1966 as a comic book written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Director Ryan Coogler, Holland says, takes the story of Black Panther one step further.
He took that origin and he adapted it for the screen. And he included parts that also came from writers like Christopher Priest and Reginald Hudlin. So what you see on the screen is not the classic origin from the comic book. It's that origin that's updated for movies and for the modern world. While it doesn't follow exactly word-for-word what the comic book did, anybody who's ever read anything about the Black Panther will be able to recognize the character.
Audiences will also notice how Coogler's storyline highlights Wakanda's matriarchy.
The Black Panther has a very strong storyline about the power of women, as well as the power of the main character. His little sister, Shuri, is his technological advisor. Some of the most powerful people in the movie are his bodyguards. So that makes it into a film that I would be happy for my daughter to see because the women are not in the film to be rescued, they're fighting right alongside the men.
Jesse J. Holland's new book is "Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?"