The Flashback Interview: Barney Burman

The gentleman in the beret in this article’s cover photo is my newest interview subject, Barney Burman. Barney has been active as a makeup artist for almost four decades now. Coming from a family of makeup artists, Barney started as a teenager, and isn’t showing any signs of stopping. That’s fantastic as he’s a versatile designer who has worked on all sorts of amazing projects, most notably 2009’s Star Trek, which won him a Best Makeup And Hairstyling Oscar, which he shared with Mindy Hall, who’s next to him in the cover photo, and Joel Harlow.

A few weeks back, Barney was kind enough to agree to an interview with me. I hope you all enjoy getting to know more about this talented creator and his work.

Say hello to Barney Burman!

Johnny: Was working in film something you’d always wanted to do, or did you initially have a different career goal in mind growing up?

Barney: I always imagined myself working in films in one capacity or another. I don’t remember wanting to be a fireman or an astronaut. Because my father worked in film, I think I was just surrounded by it, so that’s what I would do, whatever that meant. It started off that I wanted to be a stuntman until I was about 11, I think, and then I wanted to be an actor. I think I never got over that one (laughing).

Johnny: Alright. One of your first credits as a makeup designer was Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, notable for being Leonard Nimoy’s directorial debut. As you were both relatively new to your respective fields of work, was the collaborative process easier than it might have been if either of you had more experience at that time?

Barney: Well, to be clear, I wasn’t the designer of any of that makeup. I was a kid. I was 17 years old and working for my father, who was doing the prosthetic work for Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. I worked on it for him and his shop, although I did a day as an actor, playing an alien in the bar scene where McCoy is looking for a pilot, and gets busted. There was a fight that broke out, and that whole fight got cut. I got my SAG card for doing that day.

Johnny: Alright. We’ll return to the Star Trek franchise in due time, but to go to my next question, you were a special effects makeup artist for the 1985 horror-comedy classic House. What made that movie so special for you to work on?

Barney: That movie was incredibly special for me. A man named James Cummins and his partner, Rick Brophy, were handling the supervision and design of the makeup effects. It was the first time I got a job in a makeup effects shop that wasn’t family. I always worked for family before that, and this was the first time somebody outside my family hired me.

I have many, many great memories. I made a lot of great friends, including Brian Wade and Howie Weed, who went on to ILM for years. A man named Brent Baker became my best friend for 30 years after that. On my first day of working there, I made a mold with Brent, and we bonded very quickly.

Johnny: It’s always great when you make friendships like that.

Barney: It is. Brent passed away a couple of years ago, sadly. I still miss him. It’s very heartbreaking.

Johnny: Well, you’ll always have the memories of your work together.

Barney: Yes, indeed.

Johnny: To go to my next question, you worked on the 1987 horror film From A Whisper To A Scream, which starred Vincent Price. Do you have any interesting anecdotes to share about working with Mr. Price?

Barney: I didn’t actually work with Mr. Price on that. This was before I was running any shows myself. My brother, Rob Burman, got that job, and he and I, and another guy named Chris Biggs, went to Dalton, Georgia to work on it. It was very memorable, and it was a lot of fun. Jeff Burr was the writer/director, and his brother, William Burr, also wrote and produced. I remember that they came to us and said Dalton, Georgia, is a small, reilgious town. There’s a lot of churches there, as you can imagine in Georgia in the South in the 80s.

They told us to keep a low profile, and they told us this the day after somebody from the newspaper came to visit on set. Seriously, after I finished that conversation, we walked out of this diner, and there was this newspaper stand with the local newspaper and me on the front page with a demon baby (laughing). Dalton was not too happy about that.

Johnny: (Laughing) Oh, brother.

Barney: It was a fun time, though. I think we got kicked out of three different motels while we were staying there.

Johnny: That’s a good story.

Barney: Yeah. We were a little rowdy, young and rowdy and foolish.

Johnny: Well, switching to a different credit, but staying in the horror genre, just as I asked John Bruno about his work on Fright Night, so I would like to ask you about 1988’s Fright Night, Part 2. What challenges did working on that movie present to you?

Barney: Bart Mixon was the lead makeup effects artist, another guy who became a lifelong friend. I feel like my challenge at the time was being taken seriously, feeling like I could do the job and trying to get people to believe it, but I was a pretty cocky young guy, so I could probably do it, but not as well as I thought I could. I did whatever that meant, including sculpting and painting.

Bart let me do a lot of stuff. Bart was terrific, and James Cummin also. They both allowed me to come and do a day on set. They were very good people. That was a big time in my life overall, but at that time, I was just kind of jumping from shop to shop, makeup studio to makeup studio, trying to sort of make a living. That was my main thrust at that time. It was not about the art of makeup, per se. It was about making a living, and feeling like I could do more than people were allowing me to do, whether it’s true or not. I just felt that way.

Johnny: I see. I think we all have a journey like that at one point or another.

Barney: Yeah. Partly, I think, that got me to where I am. My belief that I could do it, regardless of whether it was true, allowed me to raise my hand and say, “Hey, pick me! I can do this”. I would just have to prove myself eventually.

Johnny: Well, you’ve done an amazing job of it.

Barney: Oh, thank you!

Johnny: Oh, no problem. Moving ahead into the 90s, you were a supervisor on the 1993 movie Body Snatchers. You’re the second talent from that movie that I’ve interviewed, the first being Christine Elise. What do you think made Body Snatchers stand out from both previous and future adaptations of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers?

Barney: Are there going to be future ones? I sure hope so.

Johnny: Well, I meant that Body Snatchers was in-between the 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and 2008’s The Invasion.

Barney: Right. You know, Abel Ferrara was the director on that, and I remember he didn’t want anything to do with science fiction. He didn’t like science fiction. We made, like, 30 pods, and sent them off to Alabama ahead of ourselves going there. They took those pods, and after we had Steve Wang and Aaron Simms come in to do these amazing paint jobs on these pods, they collected them and covered them in mud. They could’ve just been unpainted. It was a weird job.

Abel would say things like, “I want these guys to be just like fuckin’, OOGH! Fuckin’, like, you know?”. That was a direction we would get, and he would make these faces, and gesticulate. I kept thinking I knew what he was talking about, and giving it my best shot. Again, I was working for my father, and he gave me a lot of license there, a lot of freedom on that. I don’t know if I ever gave Abel what he wanted, but I think we did some really good work. I wish the film was better as a whole, but I think it’s respectable. I think it’s a good, fun watch. If you look carefully, you can see me in it, in one of the scenes in the pod birthing room.

Johnny: Oh, cool. Switching gears, as I mentioned in my introductory e-mail to you, my first exposure to your work came via the 1994 TV movie In Search Of Dr. Seuss. As I’m sure you enjoyed reading his books growing up, what was it like to help bring Seuss’ fanciful images to live action?

Barney: Well, Rick Stratton was my boss on that. He brought me in to do these bald caps and make them look Seussian. It was fun because this was before The Grinch, and it was fantastic helping out. I’m not going to take credit for the design, but being able to help create these living Seuss-like characters reminded me a lot of The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T. That was the only film that Dr. Seuss was a production designer on. It was really just a joy. Kathy Najimy was on that, and she was just a delight.

Johnny: Cool. To go to my next question, just like my previous interview subject Ve Neill, you worked on the makeup for the 1999 movie Galaxy Quest. As you started out working on the Star Trek franchise, and would return to the Star Trek franchise in the future, what was it like to be working on what some would consider to be an honorary part of Star Trek?

Barney: Well, at the time, I was just thrilled to be working on it. Ve brought me on to help do it. I made up the Thermian extras, and did a little bit of work with Stan Winston and his crew, just sort of watching for the bad aliens. I did a little bit of bouncing around wherever needed, but I was new in the union, and I was very thankful to be there, and part of that amazing crew. There were an amazing amount of great makeup artists working on that. It was special to me in that regard.

We knew what the concept was, basically a Star Trek-like spoof, but nobody knew it was going to be as big as it was. I do remember making up the people for the convention, who were all supposed to be people who had made themselves up. We would send them to set, and they would come back with a note saying, “These are too good. Make them worse!” (Johnny and Barney laughing). We did this, like, three or four times on some people, and they said, “This is too good. Make it bad!”. It was hard. Our job has always been to make something as good, as realistic and believable to the eye as possible, and they’re saying, “Knock it off! Don’t try to be good here. Just slap it on”.

Johnny: Yeah. They say it’s harder for good artists to do work that’s supposed to be bad than for a bad artist to do work that’s supposed to be good.

Barney: Yeah. That reminds me. I’m not comparing myself to him, necessarily, but Martin Scorsese, for Goodfellas, had the character of Morrie, and Morrie’s Wigs. Scorsese was influenced by a guy who had done a commercial locally. It wasn’t for wigs. It was for used cars or something, and he thought, “That’s the look I want for the commercial”, so instead of trying to emulate the look, he just hired the guy who made the used cars commercial to come in and do the Morrie’s Wigs commercial. He gave him full artistic autonomy to do that commercial the way he saw fit.

Johnny: A very cool story. Returning to you and your work, you were among the makeup artists for 2001’s Planet Of The Apes. As the original Planet Of The Apes helped to codify many of the tropes of film makeup, were you nervous about following in that film’s footsteps?

Barney: I wasn’t nervous. Rick Baker was the designer, and I don’t know if he was nervous. He was probably excited to do his version of those apes. Some people didn’t like them, and I don’t know why. I thought they were gorgeous makeups, and they definitely deserved recognition as far as the Academy Awards, but it wasn’t even nominated. I was also very happy to be there, and to be among that crew. I made a lot of different apes that got very well-featured, and I learned a heck of a lot as far as applying. It’s a film that influenced my sensibilities as far as designing later in life. I got it from there on.

Johnny: Alright. That does lead me to ask: As comedian Dana Gould is such a big fan of Planet Of The Apes that he does his own spin on the character of Dr. Zaius, performing it at live shows and even on his YouTube channel, have you ever collaborated with him?

Barney: I have not. I was not aware of that. It sounds hilarious, though.

Johnny: Yeah. He has this web series called Hangin’ With Dr. Z. That’s a talk show where Gould, as Dr. Z, interviews celebrities. It’s a pretty interesting impression that he does, and sometimes he’ll do impressions of other talents as Dr. Zaius. When I asked the question about Planet Of The Apes, that was something that came to mind.

Barney: I’ll have to look it up.

Johnny: Well, returning to you, you were part of the makeup staff for 2003’s Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl. When you were working on that movie, did you have any idea that it would become the phenomenon that it did?

Barney: No, I don’t think anybody knew. That’s another one Ve Neill was the department head and designer for. She brought me on to help with a lot of background stuff. At the time, I wasn’t very high on the ladder then. I wasn’t really taking on my own shows. I had the good timing in that era working for other people, which was comfortable, and didn’t give me much responsibility (laughing). I liked it that way.

Johnny: Alright. You worked on another unique remake as the prosthetic department makeup head on the 2004 version of Dawn Of The Dead. What effects are you most proud of having created for that movie?

Barney: Well, I am very proud of that. I had worked previously with Kazu Tsuji, the wonderful makeup artist who won an Oscar for making up Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour. Kazu and I had done some zombie test makeups for The Haunted Mansion, and we were using gelatin and latex, with the gelatin sandwiched in layers of latex. It was a very cool look. When Dave Anderson, who was the designer of Dawn Of The Dead, brought me on, we talked about techniques. I told him about this, and we tried it a few times.

We really liked where it was going, and that became the look on the show for the zombies, so I’m proud to have learned from people like Kazu, and to have been able to bring that new sensibility and technology into the zombie world, which I think it was kind of suited for. Also, I had a really great time. Me and Tony G were the department heads on it, and we just made zombies. We directed the look of them every day for two months. It was fantastic.

Johnny: Cool. Staying with remakes, you worked on the first two films in the Ring series. Had you seen Ringu before signing on for The Ring, and if so, what did you both want to keep from the original, and do differently than the original?

Barney: I did not. Bart Mixon and Kazu and I made up the girl that was the demon, creating the look anew every day. Kazu took care of her face, and she had prosthetics, and then Bart and I would do an arm and a leg, each of us. It was still a fun time. I was working for Rick Baker, and it’s hard to beat that.

Johnny: Cool. To go to my next question, you helped create makeup for Tom Cruise in movies like Mission: Impossible 3 and Tropic Thunder. As I’m a man who has been greatly helped by psychology and psychiatric medicine, I’m not really a fan of Tom Cruise, and I have a feeling he wouldn’t be a fan of me, either (Barney laughs), so did you find Tom Cruise nice or nasty in working with him?

Barney: Well, all religious or political talk aside, I found him to be extremely nice, and sort of magnanimous. I did a chest cast for him in Mission: Impossible 3. They wanted to do a scene with CPR and chest compressions, and they didn’t want Michelle Monaghan to be faking it. They wanted her to be really pushing on him, so I made this chest piece that would protect him from any injury.

In doing the cast of him, I messed up and used a silicone with the wrong separator, and it didn’t separate. It glued onto the hairs on his chest, and I thought, “I am so fired”, because pulling this thing off, literally, his hairs were coming out one at a time. He had to use a straight razor to cut his hairs off to pull the thing, and I just thought, “I am so screwed right now. I am just sunk”. He looked at me and said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine”. He just kept going and got through it. I already wanted to do my best work, but now I’m thinking, “Oh, I’ve got to make it up to him. I’ve got to do something that’s as good as I can possibly make it”.

Johnny: Alright. Switching gears again, you returned to the Star Trek franchise with the 2009 reboot. How had your approach to makeup changed in the 25 years between Star Trek III and the Star Trek reboot, and what were your favorite characters to help create for the movie?

Barney: Well, with Star Trek III, I was working for my father, and I was pretty low on the ladder. I had to do some sculpting and a lot of prep work, but I was a kid. I didn’t really care so much about it. When it came to the reboot, JJ Abrams had a dream about being a makeup effects artist himself, and so I wanted to go in and give him the absolute best I could do. I didn’t have any pretense about winning an award for it, but I wanted to do work that was worthy of that caliber.

We used silicon instead of foam latex. It was the highest grade material, and it was the best approach to take at all times. I’m not sure how much it compares to my first one, other than I wanted to go in and look at it all with fresh eyes. I didn’t want to come in with any preconceived notion of how something was supposed to be done, or how they did it before. I wanted to throw all that stuff out and say, “Let’s rethink it”.

Johnny: Well, that rethinking did pay off as you would, of course, win a Best Makeup And Hairstyling Oscar for Star Trek. Were you nervous on Oscar night, and can you recall what you felt when your name was announced as a winner?

Barney: I can recall it, sure. I wasn’t nervous because I decided I was just going to be present, and enjoy the day whatever happened. That was my goal. “No matter what happens here, I feel good about today. I feel good about our chances, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to be here and enjoy every moment of this whole process”. I did, and it was a very fun, almost zen place for me to be most of the time.

I remember watching Ben Stiller come out. He was dressed up in blue like an Avatar character, which was ironic as all of those were CG. (Laughing) Maybe that’s what he was making fun of. I don’t know, but I remember him talking and going on and on, and I remember thinking, “I love him talking. As long as he’s talking, nothing has changed, and I’m still here in the moment, loving this whole experience. As soon as he calls out a name, everything’s different”, and of course he did. Robin Williams did a great imitation of what it’s like to win an Oscar. Everything goes into high speed and slow motion at the same time.

Johnny: Well, it’s definitely a tremendous honor to win such an award. Me, personally? I view all Academy Award winners as equal, but this leads to my next question. (Author’s note: This interview was done several weeks before the 94th Academy Awards) The Academy is giving Best Makeup And Hairstyling, as well as seven other Oscars, short shrift this year by presenting them before the ceremony begins. Even though the announcements will be edited into the live show, I still feel like the winners in these categories are getting screwed out of important moments. As a former winner in the Best Makeup And Hairstyling category, what’s your take on the Academy’s decision?

Barney: I think you’re exactly right. I think they’re screwing people out of the experience. It’s not just the winning of an award. It’s the whole experience of the process of the nominations and the day. It’s dismissive and rude, I think, of the Academy, because why? They want to cut down the length?

Johnny: One of the people involved in the decision said they want to make room for more comedy, music performances, and film clips.

Barney: Yeah, no one cares. I’ll tell you: At the awards, no one cares. No one’s going there to watch the dance numbers, you know? They want it to be entertaining, but fast, and move on and get to it. That’s what they should focus on, not how to turn it into the Ziegfield Follies.

Johnny: Yeah. I’m not happy with the decision. All the Oscar winners I’ve interviewed, including yourself, have been winners in categories that are going to be shunned this year, and it’s very disappointing. I hope they’ll reverse the decision.

I mean, the interview was published this year, but late last year, I interviewed Mark A. Mangini, who is currently nominated in the Best Sound category for Dune. I’m still hoping they’ll change their mind and announce it on the live telecast because I would love to be able to text him if he wins, as I have him saved in my contacts, and say, “Congratulations, Mark”. Now it’s going to take longer to find that out.

Barney: Yeah, exactly.

Johnny: On a hopefully more positive note, you worked on the makeup for both Zombieland movies. I loved both of them, and I think you did amazing work on the makeup for the films. Knowing that not everything in an original script makes it into a movie, were there any effects you created for either Zombieland movie that didn’t make it onscreen, although you wish they did?

Barney: Well, I would have to defer to Tony Gardner, who was the department head and designer on both of those films. I was really grateful to be brought on and work with them. I think it was instrumental in my getting to know Tony better as we’ve been working together a lot, these past few years especially. We’ve become good friends. Anyway, I think he would be a better one to ask that question.

Johnny: Alright. Let’s go to television for the next question. You were part of the creative staff for the series Grimm. What was the easiest part of working on that show and, conversely, what was the hardest?

Barney: Well, I was the department head and designer of makeup effects. The easiest and hardest? That’s a good question. The easiest part was the people. There’s an old saying, “Sometimes work is not the work. The people are the work”, but in this case, the people were fantastic. The Portland crew, most all of the directors, the producers, everybody down to the catering and craft service people were just fantastic, and I had a great time working with them.

The hardest part was the pacing, and coming up with new characters. We had designers like Constantine Sekaris and Jerad Marantz doing the designs, and then we’d turn them into prosthetic makeups, but we would have four to eight days, often, to do it. One time we had a guy who was a complete head-to-toe character. He had to glow from the inside, and we had to do it in twelve days.

They thought up these wonderful characters, and they were characters that I thought, ideally, should’ve had more time to make them. We didn’t have the time, but we still did it, and I’m very proud of the work we all accomplished on that.

Johnny: Fantastic. In recent years, you’ve collaborated with Sacha Baron Cohen on projects like Who Is America? and Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm. What’s been the most rewarding part of working with him?

Barney: I would say working with him is the most rewarding part. It’s always interesting, and it’s always challenging. This is something else Tony Gardner brought me in on, by the way. You know, you’re doing stuff where you have to take everything into another location, into a hotel room, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, and set up a makeup room. It always feels like you’re missing something, but you don’t know what it is. We were transforming hotel rooms, moving the bed up on its’ end and transforming these hotel rooms into makeup rooms.

He’d come in at 3:30 in the morning to sit for three-and-a-half hours to get made up, and he’d be focused, reading his lines and talking to his writers about what he was going to do for the day. It was a really fascinating process to watch, and you don’t get to touch him again. After he leaves, that’s it. He’s going to be in front of real people and has to be believable, so you’ve got to bring your A game. We sit around for hours, waiting for him to be done, and at the end, he comes in smiling because of the experience he had.

It’s just great, and he’s very complimentary. He really makes you feel good, like you’re valued and worthy. He, like Tom Cruise and so many others, demands and deserves your A gaame. You can’t go in there faking it. You’ve got to bring your attention to detail and nail it because, otherwise, it’s not acceptable. It’s not, “Hey, if you screw up, you’re fired”, but it’s the knowledge that you can’t screw up.

Johnny: Yeah, that makes sense and, again, you do great work.

Barney: Thank you.

Johnny: Oh, no problem. Soon your work will be seen in my dear friend and former interview subject Kim Hopkins’ project, The Cannibals’. How did you get involved in that project?

Barney: Oh, is Kim Hopkins your friend?

Johnny: Yes. She’s a very good friend of mine. I interviewed her back in 2019, although it was published in early 2020, and we’ve remained in touch since then. She’s a Facebook friend of mine, and she’s also been my pointwoman on how to deal with the COVID epidemic.

Barney: Well, Tony Gardner’s daughter, Kyra, is good friends with Abigail Breslin, and they’re super-kind. I came in to help Kyra do a makeup just for the fun of it because she’s my friend, and they put me on IMDB for it. I don’t have very much connection with it, but I’m very excited to see it. It looks like what they’re doing is super-fun.

Johnny: Yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to it myself. You’ve done some directing yourself recently, most notably with Wild Boar. What was the inspiration behind that movie?

Barney: Well, me and a friend of mine were going to make a movie. It was going to be a werewolf movie, but then we decided not to do it, in short. We both went on to other projects, but he came to me one time and said, “What about a movie that’s like Planet Of The Apes, but with pigs?”. I said, “That’s awesome!”, so I started writing it. At the time, I was going to write it and he was going to direct it. I wrote something that was really not doable. It was too big and too much for the budget we were talking about doing it for. We both went on to other projects again, and it went on the backburner.

As time went by, I kept thinking about it. It just got stuck in my craw, and finally I said, “I’m going to write this again, but I just want to direct it. It’s something I’ve been thinking about”. He agreed to hand over the reigns to me, and I couldn’t not do it. It was something I kept doing, making masks and things in my shop while working on Grimm. I kept thinking, “Wild Boar”, and I kept pushing it, and eventually, I decided to sell a house I had to make the movie with the proceeds from that house.

Johnny: Well, switching to a bigger picture question, how have the past few years of coronavirus impacted the way you do your job?

Barney: In many ways. One way was, during lockdown, I found footage of a short film called W V. Z: Bush Vs. The Zombies. I found the old footage I’d never finished. I put that together, like, 13 or 14 years ago so, during the lockdown, I finished that film. It was a two-part short film comedy with my friend, Jim Nieb, whom I used to make up as George W. Bush since he did a great Bush impression. He and I made this film where Bush is attacked and fights zombies, basically. That’s it. We had a great time doing it.

There’s another short film that’s not quite finished, but I’ve been playing with. I made some microfilms just for myself. I got more into editing and directing little things. I’m not big on posting them. Maybe I should but, also, they’re just for me. As for makeup, I’ve found it annoying, the amount of extra care you have to go, wearing a mask and getting tested. All that stuff is frustrating, but it’s something that’s becoming standard and the norm, so it’s kind of not as a big a deal as it was when it started.

I’ve also had weird little perks. For example, I worked on Curb Your Enthusiasm for a few days, and my makeup room was a dressing room right next to Larry David and Ted Danson. That felt pretty good. Even in regular makeup, instead of a makeup and hair trailer, they’ll have a makeup trailer, and then they’ll separate every other station that people are working at. I think that’s great because everybody has more room to spread out and live in during the time they’re working on the project.

Johnny: I see. Well, hopefully things will get back to normal. I mean, we’re kind of halfway there, but then things happen. It’s basically a rollercoaster.

Barney: Yeah, totally.

Johnny: To come to my final question, what’s next for you?

Barney: I write a lot. I have some scripts out there that are being shopped around. I have a film called The 10th Victim that I co-wrote with my friend, Susan Macauley, who’s a terrific YA horror writer. She and I wrote this script together based on her story, and I’m set to direct it.

Johnny: Oh, cool.

Barney: We’re putting together financing for that now, and I’m looking forward to that. In the meantime, I’m taking makeup jobs here and there that I can’t talk about because they never allow me to talk about things until they’re done…

Johnny: I understand.

Barney: …But I have some fun things coming up in the future.

Johnny: Fantastic. That does it for my questions. I’ll definitely be in touch. I again thank you for your time, and I loved hearing your stories.

Barney: Oh, thanks so much, Johnny. It was fun talking to you.

Johnny: Oh, no problem. Be well.

Barney: Take care. Bye.

Johnny: Bye.

---

I would like to again thank Barney Burman for taking the time out of his schedule to speak to me. For more about Barney’s work, you can visit his official website.

Coming soon to the Flashback Interview is my second conversation with actress and activist Kat Kramer.