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David White may not be a name you are familiar with, but he has been the prosthetics makeup mastermind behind some of your favorite movies for half a century. Films such as Krull (1983), Return to Oz (1985), Troy (2004), Maleficent (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), and even this year’s Crow reboot. White started doing make up effects professionally at the age of 19 for Michael Mann’s The Keep back in 1983.
He is the owner of Altered States FX located in Shepperton, Surrey, England.
More recently his work on Bill Skarsgård in Robert Egger’s film Nosferatu has gotten him some attention. He is even nominated for a BAFTA, England’s version of the Oscar. iHorror talked to White about Nosferatu and what it was like creating the updated version of the legendary vampire.
Many people have stated they read Skarsgård’s name on the marquee, but didn’t recognize him in the movie. That’s a testament to White’s craft and how dedicated he is to creating a convincing illusion. We talked to him about his process, inspiration, and whether or not Orlok’s mustache was always a part of the plan.
Nosferatu arrives on PVOD Today.
iHorror: Were you trying to make Bill Skarsgård unrecognizable?
David White: That’s a great question. Um, no, it wasn’t a question of making them unrecognizable, but, generally speaking, as a prosthetics makeup guy, my first intention is to put the least amount of material on an actor so that it retains something of them and their personality. And that’s the process I started with this, but as time went on as I started putting more plaster onto Bill’s life cast—and knowing Bill, because I’d worked with him on, on a movie before and his experience in prosthetics— I knew he could handle it. I knew that he had the ability to push through whatever I was going to put on top of him with this makeup prosthetic material. So yeah, it was fine. It gave me the freedom to be able to push it as far as it needed to go and know that Bill would find a way of coming through.
Did you have to create a special color name for the tone of his skin?
No, there wasn’t a particular name. We use codes and things. It wasn’t as quite as romantic in that nature. It’s very, very technical. It’s kind of a wax and puce color which is actually infused within the silicon itself, and so we went through many tests in order to get that tonal value—not only the tone, but the density of it. The material needs to have a little bit of a translucency to it. So all these elements are put together to create this kind of wonderful sort of sallow, you know, wax and tone, which was kind of based on those old wax sculptures they used to do in the 17 18th century; kind of morgue bodies and things. They used to do these strange autopsy sort of reproductions in wax and so I based it on one of those.
Everyone is talking about the mustache. Was that always in the design or was it an afterthought?
Yeah, that was always going to be part of it. Robert’s [Eggert] intention from day one was to use the mustache and the fall up. He provided me with a series of mood boards which have sort of mid-seventeenth century illustrations of noblemen from, you know, Europe. And a lot of them had that kind of look—that kind of Cossack-inspired look, and that began that journey.
You’ve said that the natural world is where you get inspiration for your designs. What did you pull from nature to create Count Orlok?
Well, for a start, I, I was aware that the lighting was going to be extremely moody, and there was a lot of shadow work involved. So my initial thought was to make sure that if he was in any kind of profile or silhouette, that he was striking in almost a caricature in a way, a strange kind of note that is played because it’s so distinctively him. You know, like you see cartoonists when they draw with a single line, you know what it is, and it looks effortless, but it isn’t. It takes time to develop that shape and those looks. And myself and my key sculptor, Colin Jackman, we went through many days of offering up to shadows and offering up the light sources to get that right look for Skarsgård in this particular piece.
You’re up for a BAFTA this year. Do you think audience praise is more validating or getting an award?
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I mean, to be honest, it’s about the people that go to the cinema, and that’s what counts. Ultimately, you know, we haven’t done our job if if they’re not entertained and amused; it’s got, it’s got to hit home. That is the base of everything. So that’s really, really, really important. Any other kind of accolade is greatly received and I am so grateful because it feels like we’ve achieved what we set out to do. So I’m incredibly grateful for those things that come with things if we’re hitting the right notes. But basically, ultimately my intention is never about awards or when starting on a project or anything, it’s mainly about making sure that people are gonna be super happy with what they see in the cinema.
You’ve been doing this for so long, working on some of cinema’s greatest films. Do you ever think about retiring?
I don’t think I can ever retire because I love what I do. I’ve always done it. Even as a teenager, I did this kind of stuff. And so I enjoy every day doing this.
Are you currently working on something you can talk about?
No, not at the moment.
Well, I hope it’s something great. I hope you win this BAFTA and thank you so much for bringing Count Orlok to life
Fabulous. I’m so pleased you like it. Thank you