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Alison Stewart: This is All of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We continue now our series The Big Picture. That's when we speak to Oscar nominees who worked behind the camera to make excellent films. The work of our next guest requires a lot of work before the director yells, "Action," but then you can see his work full throttle. In the film The Substance from the unforgettable spinal birth scene to the creature at the end of the movie, it's because of special make-up effects by designer Pierre Olivier Persin.

He worked with a team to help achieve the body horror vision of writer Coralie Fargeat. He spent hours each day transforming Demi Moore into Elizabeth Sparkle, a movie star who begins aging rapidly after she takes an unusual black market drug. If you've seen the movie, you know how key the make-up is to telling this story. The Substance is one of only seven horror movies to ever be nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Pierre Olivier is nominated as well for best make-up and hair styling. Welcome.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Hello.

Alison Stewart: Hello. How did you get your start as a make-up artist? I know it's an obvious question, but I want to know.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Oh, well, when I was 14, 15 years old, I used to have lath and plaster for Christmas and clay. I spent my teenage years making monsters out of my bedroom trying to copy the great make-up from that time, like The American Werewolf in London or, I don't know, Gremlin. The end of the '80s for me.

Alison Stewart: When was your big break when you knew, "This is going to be a career for me?"

Pierre Olivier Persin: Oh, when I was teenager at the end of the '80s, I knew that I was going to be a special make-up effects artist. There was no doubt about that.

Alison Stewart: That is such a great thing to know when you're a teenager. You knew this is what you wanted to do.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Yes. I don't know if it's a chance. That's a big chance. After that, it's lots of work, but that's a big chance. I agree.

Alison Stewart: When you first read the script for The Substance, what was your first reaction?

Pierre Olivier Persin: There is a funny story, because the executive producer called me and he said, "I have that script with lots of prosthetics. Would you like to read it?" I said, "Yes, sure." They always say that and sometimes you end up doing just only a couple of things. I said, "Yes, sure, send it over." Then I read the script and I was like, "Oh, that's incredible. That's terrific. I have to do that movie." I was the one crawling back at him saying, "Oh, I have to. Please let me do the movie." That was my start on the show.

Alison Stewart: How were the visual descriptions written into the script?

Pierre Olivier Persin: Some of it was [inaudible 00:03:22]. For instance, for the monstro, the monster at the end of the movie, it was clearly written that Elizabeth Sparkle's face was stuck on the back of the monster with that terrible screaming face. That was written down, but it wasn't written that she-- She wasn't described apart from that. It was a little bit of both worlds.

Alison Stewart: Sadly, I think I'm going to have to ask you to turn your camera off. You're coming to us from France and you keeps stuttering a little bit, so I have to say goodbye to you that way.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Goodbye.

Alison Stewart: Otherwise we'll talk. [laughs] My guest is make-up artist Pierre Olivier Persin. He's the Oscar-nominated for his work on The Substance. It's starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. You told the LA Times that you sat with the director for three days, just going over all of the different looks. What was helpful about that process?

Pierre Olivier Persin: You read the script, but that's only a start. Then you really need to understand what's inside the director's mind. Words are just only the beginning. Sometimes you can have just a couple of words, but it's going to be like an epic sequence, or sometimes you think something very big in the movie, but the director will say, "It's going to last only a few seconds. Don't worry too much about that." That was really important. What I discovered is that with the director, Coralie Fargeat, really wanted practical effects as possible. That was the big thing I discovered. I was like, after those three days, "Wow, that's going to be big."

Alison Stewart: It's interesting because so many of the effects are practical effects. Why was it so important to you and the director that the effects be mostly practical?

Pierre Olivier Persin: That's a good question. [inaudible 00:05:44] watching the movie, that when she was watching the movie, she wanted to touch what she was seeing on screen. I guess that was why we did that that way. That was the whole point, to have a very organic journey, in a way, while watching the movie. It's all about flesh and, I don't know, turning into weird things. It's gooey and it's full of wrinkles and boobs and whatever. I guess Coralie wanted that [inaudible 00:06:24] to the movie.

Alison Stewart: Let's start with the back birthing scene, [chuckles] where we see Sue emerges from Elizabeth's back. That is Mark Qualley's character versus Demi Moore's character. Why is that the place you wanted to start? It was the first thing that you worked on, the back birthing scene.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Yes, that's correct. That was lots of fun. I don't know. What can I say? We used different kind of make-up effects for that. We used silicone dummies. They were a bit like big, realistic puppets. We had raised sets. With my team, we were below the set and we were perpetuating these dummies of the rippling effect and the back splitting open and all that. That was one part of the effects. Then we had really big prosthetics that we applied on the actress for all the stitching and the big wounds and all that. It was using different techniques depending on the shot.

Alison Stewart: For many of the shots, you created moles and scans of the actors in this film. What does that allow you to do in your work?

Pierre Olivier Persin: We used a little bit of everything. It's true, we used digital sculpting and scan and 3D printing, but we also used very traditional techniques. For instance, we used to do back in the days, we used to [inaudible 00:08:22] full bodies, and it's really difficult for the actor to stay [unintelligible 00:08:29] for two hours while people are trying to live cast your body. It can be a very difficult experience and very physical. You don't want to put anybody through that with. With a scan, you can just-- What we used is photogrammetry, and it's a system. You just take 200 pictures at the same time.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow, that's really interesting.

Pierre Olivier Persin: That's fascinating. You don't torture anyone.

Alison Stewart: Sometimes you do have to torture them. They have to sit as the molding is applied to them. It could take an hour. It could take up to seven hours. What do you do with an actor for all of those hours where they have to sit there and they have to be still?

Pierre Olivier Persin: Yes, they do. When we apply all the prosthetics, when we glue the prosthetics, blend the edges, paint and color all the appliances, apply wigs and all that, it's quite time consuming. That's true. Yes, they have to sit still. The best is when they follow what you're doing. Sometimes they can fall asleep, but sometimes you want them to be awake because you want them to close their eyes, look up for me and whatever.

We do breaks, obviously. You have to be very aware of feelings. If you can feel or sense that there is something wrong, you just have a break. Sometimes you're going to chat, and sometimes you're going to feel that they want to stay in character. Anything, they don't want you to speak, so you just stick to your work. Depending on the-- We are working on human beings, very sensitive human beings, so you also need to be careful. Sometimes we are so focused because it's so technical, we tend to forget a little bit about that, but you have to keep that in mind.

Alison Stewart: My guest is make-up artist Pierre Olivier Persin. He's Oscar-nominated for his work on The Substance. When Sue doesn't respect the balance of The Substance, Elizabeth's body begins to show rapid aging. At first it's a finger, and then it's more and more. What research did you do into how the body begins to look as it ages, especially that finger?

Pierre Olivier Persin: For the finger, actually, I didn't research anything. It came naturally. We had to find a balance between realism and fantasy. We wanted the characters to be believable and the prosthetics to be believable, but also Coralie wanted to be free and to go crazy if needed. That was a fine line between that. We researched the effect of aging on full bodies, on naked bodies. We looked for hunchback, real people, and we had spines [inaudible 00:12:10]. Then you feed yourself with all that, but then you try to come up with your own design. Some movies, you're going to have to do very realistic things, but that movie, we have that little fantasy license.

Alison Stewart: We got a call from a listener with a really good question. It says, "How do you apply it the same every day so there's no continuity issues ever?"

Pierre Olivier Persin: That's a very good question. What we do is you start with a live cast or scan of the face, for instance. You sculpt the new character on top of the live cast. For instance, the Demi Moore make-up, and then we take molds of the sculpture. From those molds, we are able to cast silicone appliances that we're going to apply every day on the actress. If I have 40 days of shooting, I will be able to cast 40 sets of prosthetics from those molds and apply them. The appliances are going to look exactly the same because they all come from the same molds. Each day, the make-up is going to look exactly the same.

Alison Stewart: There's a New Year's Eve sequence, and I'm not giving too much away, but body parts start coming off at one point. What went into creating that effect?

Pierre Olivier Persin: Which one are you referring to, sorry?

Alison Stewart: For example, when her ear falls off. [laughs]

Pierre Olivier Persin: Oh.

Alison Stewart: Her ear falls off.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Sorry. Spoiler, it's my fault. I feel terribly guilty now. What was the [unintelligible 00:14:17]? You just try to do your best to glue down the ear and cover it with an appliance, and camera angle will help a lot.

Alison Stewart: In the final scene, as long as we're giving away spoilers, [chuckles] here is this giant monster, we see. This Elisa-Sue, maybe something else. This big creature. It's got body parts and face parts and all kinds of parts. Was there actually an actor in a suit for that sequence?

Pierre Olivier Persin: Yes. For the clothes, we had Margaret Qualley inside the suits. For all the wider shots and the most compli-- No spoiler, most complicated shot, we had a stunt double. Yes, it was a suit and a prosthetic make-up applied on her face.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting, though. I knew it was Mag Quallye in a suit, but you can see it in her eyes, and I thought that was really interesting.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Precisely. I had lots of discussions with Coralie when we were prepping the movie, and I was like, "The suit is going to be difficult to wear. We should use the stunt double all the time." Coralie was like, "I want to use Margaret for the close ups because it's really a performance." The monster is really tragic-- What's happening to the character is really tragic during the movie. She wanted to see her eye. There's only one eye. She really wanted to see what the character was going through.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been artist Pierre Olivier Persin. He's an artist and a make-up artist, I should say. He's Oscar-nominated for his work in The Substance. Thank you so much for being with us. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Pierre Olivier Persin: Thank you so much for having me. That was great.