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A realistic makeup is the hardest thing to do in makeup, period, he explains.
It is the pinnacle of skill.
The pinnacle of believability.
I can make an alien, and I can make it have 50 eyeballs or whatever.
No one knows what it looks like.
But an old person?
If I drop the ball, nothing works.
On a project as ambitious asTrue Detective, Marinos job begins with a conversation.
I met with Mahershala in Los Angeles with Stephen Dorff, Marino remembers.
I took photographs of them, extensive photographs.
I found out how they felt about these characters.
At this point Marino becomes a sculptor.
The heart of makeups like this are in this sculpture phase, this design phase.
Thats where everything is actually built.
What I found was that most of Abrahams face was still there and not covered up, he says.
Marino is an artist concerned expressly with how faces look.
Ive predominantly done more white actors for some reason, Marino says.
Thats not by choice.
It just happens to be that way.
It may be that Hollywood is overwhelmingly white.
So he turned to an unusual case:The Nutty Professor.
I think thats one of the best makeups that was ever done, he says.
What Rick Baker did even though it was a comedy was so successful.
What I noticed and what I learned that helped me with Mahershala is the colorization of dark skin.
What I learned was how to color black skin properly.
There are certain oils that are different.
Black skin is smoother.
Textures are deeper in certain areas and textures are less in certain areas than in a Caucasian face.
Getting this right was essential to the success of the effect.
It was a real challenge, he says.
It was basically coming to work, at first, about five hours early, Ali recalls.
Eventually we got it down to where they could apply it in about three-and-a-half hours.
The result was worth the effort, as was evident immediately to everyone on set.
I hope that filmmakers begin to trust practical makeup effects more so now after seeing work likeTrue Detective.
