If you’ve ever seen one of those pictures of the devil that church pastors use in their Powerpoint presentations, then you’ll know how freaky it is to see the real thing walking around with a booming Tim Curry voice.
In Legend, the freaky doesn’t stop there. With incredible makeups like Meg Mucklebones and Blix the goblin thrown in for good measure, its like watching the beauty channel from Hell. So prepare yourself for some infernal fashion tips and a tale of claustrophobia that will make you never want to smear alginate on your face again.
Unfortunately, details on the makeup from the movie are few and far between. After a long walk in the fairy woods and having to bust through a sheet of enchanted ice, this is the account I’ve pieced together.
Now…
Long Distance Relationship
While working on Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott contacted makeup effects artist Rob Bottin about creating a special effect for the film. Whatever the effect may have been, the entire concept was scrapped soon after. Scott still wanted to work with Bottin, so he told him about his next project, Legend.
Bottin agreed to do the movie, so he and Scott went to work collaborating on the design of all the creatures that would be terrorizing Tom Cruise. Bottin stayed in the United States and worked from his L.A. studio, while Scott worked on pre-production in England.
Through telephone calls and a ton of drawings being exchanged, they went through each and every character’s design (as Scott put it, “right from the funny little characters through Darkness”) in order to whittle down the amount of makeups they would need.
Eventually, it was pared down to a manageable number, and Bottin produced the prosthetics at his studio. Makeup cool-guy that he is, he then flew out to England to help with the hands-on application. According to Bottin, at the time the movie was made it had the biggest makeup effects crew ever assembled for a film. That’s alot of spirit gum.
Like a game of musical makeup chairs, each of the key actors had three makeup artists working on them. Peter Robb-King, the makeup-man responsible for creating Sebastian Shaw’s comely visage in Return of the Jedi (may his eyebrows rest in peace), worked as the supervisor for this army of artists.
Think I Need a devil To Help Me Get Things Right
Initially, the two artists discussed creating the character of Darkness as an animatronic Griffin. Thankfully, a massive eagle-like beak saying “How like you my gifts?” just didn’t seem to sit well. Instead of going the Great-Moments-With-Mr. Lincoln route, they decided it was a better idea to have an actor because of the dramatic interaction that Darkness required.
Scott wanted the character to be “very sexy” and suggested a satyr. After that, Bottin presented him with the idea of the red, devil-like makeup.
Tim Curry accepted the part before the makeup had been completely designed, and was dismayed to find that with each concept drawing more of his natural features were going to be covered over. He recalls that he “fought” to keep his eyes from being covered with contact lenses. Yeah, he lost.
Initially, the makeup for Darkness took 8 hours to apply. That’s as long as it takes my aunt to put on her makeup as well, but she’s not on a filming deadline. After getting the hang of it, the artists managed to slash the time to 5 1/2 hours.
The face of the makeup is made up of bony ridges that give Darkness a permanent scowl. If he could only snuff out the cursed light, he might be smiling. Faun-like ears protrude from his head, with sharp fangs replacing Tim Curry’s teeth. It also appears a dark lipstick was used to color the lips.
I also think it’s worth taking a look at the impressive makeup on the hands, since they’re so prominently featured when he steps out of the mirror. They’re just hands, and yet they reek of doom, devilry, and are in need of a nail trimming. Bravo.
In addition to being dipped in red makeup, Curry was fitted with fiberglass horns, each measuring over three feet long. The horns were too heavy at first, even with the brace built into the makeup. Bottin had to reduce the weight so as not to strain Tim Curry’s back, making them so light that Scott says it was “weird” and “disarming” to pick one up and not feel any weight.
Given three extra feet of nightmarish height, Curry got even taller with the help of special 18″ stilts to create Darkness’ hoofed feet. The actor had to learn to walk and run in them, which sounds like a whole carnival ride in itself. Rob Bottin has said he thinks Tim Curry stood 13″ from feet to horns, while Tim Curry has said “It was pretty swell to be 8′ 1” when discussing the makeup.
With Curry’s height of 5′ 9″, the 3′ horns, and the 18″ stilts, it at least sounds like he stood well over 10 feet tall.
Each day after filming wrapped, Curry had to sit in a bath for an hour to liquefy the oceans of spirit gum that had been applied to his body. One day, he got impatient and claustrophobic, and started tearing the makeup off. Since ripping spirit gum off is a bit like ripping fish hooks out of your flesh (speaking from experience) Curry ended up tearing his skin apart. Scott had to shoot around him for a week to “calm him down.”
Feeling Swamped
One of my all-time favorite monster makeups, the “beautiful” Meg Mucklebones was designed by Miles Teves, a concept designer and illustrator on Legend. The character was based on the English folktale of Jenny Greenteeth, a river hag who is almost as good-looking as Meg. Ridley Scott has said that he wanted to make the character “like a crazed hillbilly.”
Her design and creation came late in the production. As Teves said:
“Because we spent so long on Darkness and some of the other characters, when it came to the witch, Meg Mucklebones, there was very little time left…Rob basically brought me a picture of the witch from Disney’s Snow White and said ‘This is what we’re going to do—only more real and more extreme.’ He liked the simple lines—the little apple cheeks, the bulgy eyes, and the way the chin hooked up to meet the nose. We really pulled that one off fast.”
It’s an odd feeling that grips you when you find out that Meg Mucklebones was played by Robert Picardo. Yes, the EMH Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager was plastered with latex and thrown in a pool of water while managing to do a very convincing witch-impression. Reflecting on Meg, Picardo has said:
“That (playing Meg) was also a little grueling to do, it was a little dangerous to do, in the water and being on the little hydraulic trap door and all that. There were some safety considerations; when I pointed some of them out during rehearsal, they elected not to have me submerge my head under water, which I think was a very wise choice….
Paint It Blix
When designing Darkness’ henchman Blix, actress Alice Playten, who portrayed the goblin, suggested that Blix’s face should be modeled after Rolling Stones member Keith Richards. Ridley Scott agreed that it sounded like an interesting idea and had Rob Bottin use Richards as his starting model.
Other fantastic makeups applied during filming:
Monster Merch
Need to add more Legend stuff to your collection? Probably not, but it’s fun to look anyway. These are affiliate links, so any commissions I may receive will be used to put up warning signs in the forest to avoid toadstool rings, willow trees, and old oaks.
