Interview with Gregory Nicotero - Part 3 of 3

[Photo: Enzo Giobbe/StarLens.com]

Part 3 of 3

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On Evil Dead 2:

Gregory Nicotero: That was probably in the top 5 movie experiences. I remember working on Day of the Dead, and Evil Dead 1 one had just come out on video. Everyone was a big fan because it was so imaginative and so wild and so out there. And then to get a chance to work with the same team, Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert. It was really a lot of fun. I mean, sitting there watching, you know reading the script. I remember the first thing that really struck me was I thought the script was genuinely pretty terrifying. As I got to know Sam I started realizing that he had such a sort of tongue-in-cheek, Three Stooges sort of mentality about him.

I always had my video camera in my hands so every time I would turn it on he would step up and it was always "Hello. We're about to do a very scary stunt." And all the footage I shot, I shot seven hours, I think they used about half an hour of it on the DVD because I thought the footage was so great. It was something that certainly fans would really want to see. Just in terms of the making of all that stuff. It was a great experience. We shot at the gymnasium in Waynesboro, SC and they actually built the cottage or the cabin on two stories. So the basement was below the upper level. So when we would shoot the upper level stuff we would have to climb up and go up to the set. And then the exterior was shot in the woods right down the street from where Spielberg was also shooting. It was just a great time. We shot from like May until September and it was an amazing experience. I have more recollections of that movie and Day of the Dead than almost any other film.

On shooting his own home video on the set of Land of the Dead:

Gregory Nicotero: It's just one of those things where there's not always a camera crew around, so you never know. But most of the time when you're shooting gags or gore shots for zombie's biting somebody or something, the studio doesn't really want to show that stuff because that's the stuff that's gonna not end up on Entertainment Tonight or something. That's something they don't really want to show because it would give away a gag for the movie. So I always have my camera with me, even if I'm covered in blood, which is most of the time. I wanted to video tape all this because I wanted some posterity of me being directed by George Romero.

On getting “messy”:

Gregory Nicotero: It's actually kind of funny. My Levis from Sin City are still stained with fluorescent orange and fluorescent blue blood from the yellow bastard scene where Bruce Willis beats them to death. I still have pink on my shoes...happens all the time. I forget sometimes when I go to the airport that there's like residue or fake blood all over my shoes. I keep thinking that I'm going to get on a plane one day and they're going to be like "No".

On the workday at K.N.B. EFX:

Gregory Nicotero: We try to still be human beings. Set hours are always very different. I think you know going into it that if you're going to do set work that it's insane hours. We just work from 7:00 to 4:00 here every day. Everyone goes home at 4:30 and they have, you know, a real life. It depends, too, on the project. Masters of Horror was tricky because basically you're shooting an hour movie every two weeks. For that Howard was in Vancouver and I was down here. So we're building all the stuff here and we'd have to literally ship it up to Vancouver within two weeks.

So we really had virtually no time to do anything. But it was fun because to get a chance to work with all these guys that we either have been friends with or worked for. John Landis is amazing because he's like the funniest guy on the planet, the greatest stories.

On the make-up effects for Hostel:

Gregory Nicotero: It’s all torture make-ups and stuff. It's sort of a Most Dangerous Game kind of scenario where people are sort of hunted. I don't want to give too much away but there's a couple of characters that are actually, these guys actually pay to hunt and torture people. The movie is amazing. The script was so intense. I'm really curious to see how the audiences are going to respond to it because even for me watching it, it was unsettling. And I designed all the effects stuff with Howard so I'm really curious. I think it's a great movie. Eli [Roth] is certainly a great film maker.

On the makeup effects for Masters of Horror:

Gregory Nicotero: What was interesting was for Don Coscarelli’s monster, Moonface, and for John Carpenter's segment we just sort of mocked up a bunch of stuff. I wanted the directors to have something to look at as they came in, just to sort of start finessing the designs. Scott Patten, who is one of our key designers, did a sculpture for Moonface. It was like Don walked in and went [snaps fingers] "That's it!". It ended up translating a little differently on film because Howard did a slightly different application than the design head. Because the design head we kind of had a sort of sickly yellowish-green, really weird looking. The actor that they used, John De Santis, was also in Thirteen Ghosts. He is a really big, really sort of imposing guy. It was just one of those things were Scott and I sat down and talked about what we wanted the character to look like.

On the makeup effects for The Reaping:

Gregory Nicotero: The premise of that is sort of like biblical plague type things where there's locusts and there's dead fish, and that kind of stuff. So we did a lot of animatronics and some puppet things for that. Actually I still have a crew down there right now. We're wrapping up that, and Miami Vice.

On the makeup effects for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel:

Gregory Nicotero: I'd known Brad Fuller because we did Amityville Horror remake for them. We did some stuff in the original Chainsaw movie. So they basically just said, "Call these guys up. This is what we want to see". So we're dealing much more with the origin of Leatherface and how he becomes that character. It's cool. The script is great. Jonathan Liebesman is directing. He directed Darkness Falls. A super nice guy. I think the movie is going to be good. We've got a great cast and the script is good, really good. Leatherface will have both arms.

On hiring new people for K.N.B. EFX:

Gregory Nicotero: Most of what we look for are good sculptors and all around lab guys. Most of the guys that work for us now they can make a mold, they can seam the body, they can paint, they can do hair work. You'll get really far in this business if you don't pigeonhole yourself into one technique. That sometimes happens a lot when people say, "Well I just sculpt" or "I just paint." The problem with that is that from a studio owner's standpoint you want people that can do a little bit of everything. So usually what I look for are people that are really well rounded and interested in just whatever needs to get done. That means making plaster molds one day and then running silicone bodies the next day.

On his favorite make-ups on non-horror movies:

Gregory Nicotero: I would say Kill Bill. I was so proud to know Quentin when I watched Kill Bill. Aside from our contribution, because in Kill Bill 2 there's not a heck of a lot of makeup and stuff. Except for when Lucy Liu gets killed. I was the second person to get that script. I was in Texas and we were at dinner, me and Quentin and Robert, and he handed Robert a copy and said "This is my next movie". And then I looked at him like hmm. And he said "Don't worry I have a copy for you when we get back to L.A." I read it and I was blown away.

Every time I've ever read any of Quentin's scripts I've been like awestruck. I remember reading Reservoir Dogs and just calling Howard and Bob into the office and saying "You guys gotta hear this". I read the opening scene where they talk about the Madonna Like A Virgin song. I read that out loud and said "I've never read anything like this before." And to see the success of that movie...um it's. I'm really proud of Kill Bill. I'm very proud of The Green Mile.

There's a lot of movies... we're really, really lucky. We've been able to be involved with some of these films that are so groundbreaking and change the rules. I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights.

Those movies really are redefining the whole future generation of filmmakers. For me to be able to have been associated with those movies makes me tremendously proud. Aside from that, those movies are groundbreaking in every aspect.

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