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Doug Jones on Getting Into the Costumes and Makeup: “They were both about five hours. Pan came together glue-wise and makeup-wise a little bit faster, but the mechanics were something that had to be plugged in. A lot of things had to work in concert with them together and with puppeteers operating half my face and all. He had many various elements that had to be screwed on mechanically and zippered and pinned and snapped and Velcroed. The Pale Man was more of a glue-down job and color blending that had to happen with silicon pieces.
Pan was mostly foam latex and The Pale Man was silicon because it had to get the little wattle. Silicon has much more of a lifelike movement to it and he was piece by piece glued on. In fact, he was so elaborately glued together that during the five days - it was a five day Monday through Friday shoot that they had planned for The Pale Man sequence to be completed. It turned into a four day shoot for me because I went home the first day with diarrhea. I was drinking the tap water and they had a little issue with their something something bacteria. I don't know. Anyway, so in order to get those last four days to happen, I didn't have to but they were going to release me at night and bring me back the next day with only like three hours of sleep. In order to get more sleep for me and for the makeup team, I wore a lot of The Pale Man back to the hotel. I didn't tell anybody this during the shoot because I knew that Guillermo would have my hide for it, because he wants me to relax and out of this all. But I had them take my head and neck off and my hands off, but leave the arms and the torso on.
The legs came off, The Pale Man legs were really thin and bony. Yes, I'm thin and bony, yes, but those were like actual bones with skin dangling off of them. I was wearing the complete makeup around my torso but it would blend into the bony legs that were attached to the front of me with my legs in green screen color. They could take those off pretty easily too with the drop of my pants, which I did a lot that week. But this glued on bit, it takes hours. They would wrap me in saran wrap so that the flaps wouldn't stick to themselves or to my sheets.”
Makeup Versus the Motion Capture Technique: Contrary to popular belief, Jones has never had to don CGI dots for a performance. “To this day I've never done CGI dots for motion capture,” confirmed Jones. “I just finished a job where everyone thought that's what I did, and that is not exactly the case.”
And Speaking of That Other Film… What is Jones allowed to say about playing Silver Surfer in the next Fantastic Four movie? Jones replied, “The good thing is that somebody from MTV put a story out, they were doing a set visit and they told something they probably shouldn't have and that's when I walked on set, they said, 'And then Silver Surfer walked in the studio door. The hush fell over the crowd,' or whatever he said. But he reported that the Silver Surfer was dressed in dark grey muscle and shrouded in a black hooded cape to keep him from the public or something like that. So that's out there now, so I'm not telling any tales out of school by reporting what he said, am I? You didn't hear that from me, you heard it from MTV, okay?
But I would be remiss if I said it's just that. 20th Century Fox really is spending a lot of money putting together the very best visual effects done by Weta with the very best practical effects done by Spectral Motion to create a look that is really going to stun you on film. He is absolutely, I'm not kidding, he's stunningly gorgeous.”
Jones added, “I saw a test at the early stage and it was like drop-dead, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to make the fans wet themselves.’ Yeah, you are.”
Jones just wrapped work on Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and hopes he’ll be able to play the character again sometime – maybe even in his own movie. “I sure do and if all goes well with this one, that could be in the works, coming down the pipe. Let's hope.”
The Status of Hellboy 2: “I am very excited about what's up for Abe. I'm currently in negotiations now with my own personal contract so I can't say it's a done deal yet, but I'm very hopeful that we'll come to terms. When that happens… I have a script waiting for me at home right now. I've been up in Vancouver. I just got home this morning. I did a night shoot last night, I was wrapped for the picture. ‘Good night, bye. That's it for Doug,’ and I got on a plane to come talk to y'all. I haven't been to bed yet. That's why I'm talking crazy talk. But I'm told that Abe is on a more equal playing level of Hellboy this time. He's got way more storyline. He has his hands on the bad guys and he might have a love interest. Not sure, but he might. So there's a lot to look forward to.”
