BBH LA Special: Looking The Part

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As kids, most of us were trying to not think about the monsters under the bed at night.Not a young Jamie Kelman. He got out his flashlight and went looking for them, and in these dark corners he would discover a strange passion that would forever alter the course of his life.

“I was about 13 years old when I realized that the monsters that had such a psychological grasp over my ability to sleep at night, were actually just made by people making cool stuff. I became infatuated and obsessed with it. I just thought it was the greatest thing ever, and I still do.”

More than two decades later, Kelman has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after make-up artists, creating iconic looks for Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Bruce Willis, and Jim Carrey who he memorably transformed into the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. We visited the two-time Emmy winner at his workshop in the San Fernando Valley to learn a little bit about him, his craft and his take on Hollywood.

“I draw. I sculpt. I paint. Those are the main three arts of prosthetic make-up,” he begins simply.

 Like so many crafts, it was an education of apprenticeship. “You learn it from everybody else who’s been doing it before you were. The main teacher I had was Dick Smith (who won the Academy Award for best make-up for his work on Amadeus, 1984). He wrote a book that was like an encyclopedia of how to do this stuff. It was really complete. If you wanted to make a fake head with moving eyeballs? There was a chapter for that.

He passed away about a year ago, at 92 years old. He wrote down all of his experiments along the way, so that they wouldn’t die with him.”

Kelman speaks with practiced reverence for the industry legends who came before him. “I’m all for keeping this art form vital and alive. After Jurassic Park (1994) came out, everyone thought, that’s it. Five years and all of this will not exist anymore. But that’s just not been the case. I love digital and practical, all of it. Practical make-up is still so needed. It always has been and I think it always will be.” When working with director Rian Johnson on the highly acclaimed Looper, the filmmaker insisted on the use of prosthetic make-up that would help serve the performance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. “He didn’t want to put a computer graphic face over his actor.”

The magic of prosthetic make-up does come at a very real price though. “It takes up time, and time is money because there’s 150 people on crew standing around while you’re gluing an edge back down or because you’re coming in two to three hours early to do the movie. The hours are the most gruelling part of it all.”

We can attest to this personally. In crafting this article, Jamie transformed several BBH staffers into clones of ECD (and fellow big kid at heart) Pelle Sjoenell. The process took several weeks, requiring dozens of hours, not to mention materials, patience, and of course, Jamie’s expert hands.