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Scream King Rick Baker Meets Cootie Queen: ‘Maleficent’ Makeup Artist Mentors Child Prodigy [PHOTO TOUR]

Halloween is just a few days away, so get those costumes ready. Who better to help you with some last minute ideas, than Rick Baker. The legendary makeup artist, whose credits include King Kong, American Werewolf in London, Thriller, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Maleficent, just to name a few, recently lent out his expertise to one lucky FX prodigy. Bella, the eight-year-old daughter of commercial actress Jesse Meriwether, got the thrill of a lifetime when, she got to tour Baker’s studio. Find out what happen when the kid of the Cootie Queen met the Scream King.- James Knight

My name is Jesse Meriwether. I am also known to some as “the Cootie Queen” (yes… my mother is so proud) because of an Orbit Gum Commercial that I was in (yes… that’s the one).

But all you really need to know about me is that I am the mama of two beautiful little girls: Issabella (8) and Lucciana (4).

We go to Mississippi every summer... It was during this past visit (Summer of 2014) – in early July – that this happened:

Now… to be completely fair – Bella did not build the hand from nothing. It was originally a toy that was for “Girly Time Manicures”.

I guess Bella decided this toy would serve her better a different way. So she broke it at the knuckles, duct taped the fingers into a bent position, and covered the whole thing in modeling clay.
But still… I was impressed… and proud.

I was more than happy to bake her clay sculpture in the oven. I was less happy when she told me she wanted to take an “American Werewolf” style picture and send it to Rick Baker…

ME: Baby… we COULD send it to Rick Baker. But I don’t know if he will even SEE it – let alone respond to it. So… I’ll put it up on his page… But please try not to get your hopes up too much, ok?

Bella agreed to her part of the deal. And so I did what I said I would do – and put the photo up on Facebook and Twitter.

And then… this happened…

I will never forget that day - I was sitting on my mama’s couch when I saw that tweet. And what a tweet it was! What a thing to say! I was so excited - I knew Bella was going to just lose it...

She was sitting in the front bedroom. How should I tell her…??? Should I try and surprise her…?! Should I just leave my phone out and let her find it on her own…?!?!
In the end, I decided that screaming, “OH MY GOSH BABY! RICK BAKER SAID SOMETHING TO YOU!!!” - was the best way to go.

I responded to the tweet - sincerely thanking him for his awesomeness.

And that was the beginning of the unlikely correspondence between the Scream King and my Little Monster.

Exchanges followed - always through me, naturally. Even though Bella desperately wanted to open her own Twitter account so she could speak with him directly – I informed her that Mr. Baker probably did not have time to answer 5,000 daily questions – and that we should stick to the time proven method of “motherly filtration”.

Before too long - we got hit with another bombshell:

Now… there are several types of excitement in life. There’s the type of hysterical excitement you get when someone you idolize acknowledges you exist. Then… there is a different level… one that is more quiet and composed mostly of disbelief.

BELLA: What?!? Was it Rick Baker?!? Did he say something?!?

She had heard the Twitter beep and was watching me from across the living room. My hand had flown to my mouth as soon as I read the message. My mom had read it from over my shoulder (I know because I heard her surprised gasp).

Mouth still covered in shock – I turned to gauge my mothers reaction. Now… I’m not sure how my expression was coming across… However - if it was HALF as ridiculous as my mothers – poor Bella probably thought I was about to say North America was sinking and we only had minutes to load the rafts if we wanted to escape with our lives.

I decided to simply turn the laptop around and let her read it for herself. As a mama – it was so wonderful to see the different stages silently wash over her little face (confusion – disbelief – shock – excitement).

Bella’s silence didn't last long...

BELLA: HE’S GONNA GIVE ME STUFF!?!?! Are you KIDDING me!?!?!”

She ran back and forth around the living room shaking her head. Every few seconds running back to me with a new exclamation:

BELLA: Mom! WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!?! – MOM… does this mean I’m going to see THE wolf!?!?! – Mom this is crazy!!!”

I was blown away. I posted the tweet to my Facebook page…

Everyone seemed to share my sentiment. Mr. Baker got much love that day. There were many very touching comments… however this was my favorite of all:

Jon Rogers it's at this point in the saga I assume something horrible has to happen and Rick Baker is going to kidnap your daughter to create a powerful henchman in the SFX world, and you'll have to end up arming yourself with sword and pulse rifle and getting her back. Just Remember, when you're at the end of your journey and she's across the warehouse from you with glowing red eyes...set phasers on stun.”

Bella’s First Horror Movie

At this point in the story – Bella is about to explode with excitement and wants to end our vacation about three weeks early so we can go back home to California and meet Rick Baker. I refused this outright.

So - she asked me if we could use the time we had left to make a short horror movie. I thought this would be a fun little summer project. So I told her that if she could come up with the effect (something that she could actually produce) – then I would write a story around it.

ME: So what do you want to do?

BELLA: A transformation!

ME: Excuse me?

BELLA: I wanna do a transformation! From a creature into a human! Like a siren or naiad creature…you know – the ones that sing to men to get them to come close to the water so they can eat them? I have an idea where they are super beautiful on the top but the below water part is like really gross and nasty – you know kinda like those super deep water fish – but you can't see it until you're really close and then its too late bec—

ME: Ok… Baby… that's great - really - great idea - But you know we are working with … like toilet paper and Elmers glue… you know that, right?

This realization deflated her a little. I also had to shoot down her next two ideas (again due to lack of resources and/or know how), but eventually we decided on intestines. It took Bella a few minutes to truly commit to the idea (she really had her heart set on eyeballs) – but once she made up her mind, I could see those little gears in her head going into overdrive.

Here comes the part where wanting to be a supportive parent can get tricky…

BELLA: Ok!!! Thanks, Mama! I’m gonna go to the bedroom and Google car accidents for “reference”!

ME: WAIT!! Wait… no… Um…. Lets just look for tutorials…

And so – the next two weeks we were officially in “pre-production”. Bella ran into many challenges – as one does while working on their first project – I told her to “just make it work”. However – one time I did reach out to Rick Baker with a question about latex (something I knew nothing about).

And yet again, he responded. He offered some tips, and then he posted this video for her to watch.

RICK BAKER’S MS. SHOCK TUTORIAL

Bella had so much fun during the actual night of shooting. However, she quickly learned that post production – (which in this case was just me using iMovie on my laptop) was much less exciting. Bella has deemed the entire editing process as “no fun” and wants nothing to do with it.

But before TOO long –the movie was finished.

BAD DREAMS

I even made a little 3 minute “behind the scenes” short to remember our Summer project of 2014 – I guess it could fall into the home movie category (a slightly demented home movie still counts).

MAKING OF BAD DREAMS
https://youtu.be/35z4m16dJmo

Bella was fairly happy with the way her first project turned out. It wasn’t a naiad transformation… but she did consider it “pretty good for a first try”.

After I uploaded her little movie to YouTube and Twitter – she asked me “has Rick Baker seen it yet???”- about every 15 minutes.

And… sure enough… before too long there came a response. Mr. Baker said the acting and the makeup was great. And to Bella he said, “Well Done!”

While Twitter comments may not be something tangible – to Bella it may as well have been an academy award.

BACK TO CALIFORNIA

Once summer vacation was over, and we were somewhat settled back into California life and the new school year – I sent Mr. Baker my email address over Twitter to see if this thing really was going to happen.

Keep in mind – at this point – he COMPLETELY could have done the whole Los Angeles, “things are crazy now – lets touch base in a few months” thing. He could have done that AND STILL been seen as super awesome for just taking time to answer Bella’s questions. But… that is not what happened.

As I said – I sent him my email via twitter. And the very next morning… Rick Freaking Baker was in my inbox.

He explained that his studio was in the early stages of moving and he would love for Bella and I to see the place before “it’s literally torn apart.”

So I said I would bring her the very next day, as soon as school let out…

BEST DAY EVER

Introductions

Naturally – the day I needed things to run smoothly – they didn’t. I had to find a last minute baby sitter for my 4 year old because my first sitter had an “emergency”. For a moment, I considered bringing little Lucci with me… then I thought better of it.

For one – she doesn’t share Bella’s love of strange things. And - more importantly – when Lucci is not getting her way she has a secret weapon that she loves to deploy.

I could just SEE Lucci in the middle of Rick Baker’s Studio screaming, “Mom! If we don’t leave right now I’m going to start FARTING!”

Yeah… that wasn’t an option…

Also, I was forced to locate an automobile because some punk had stolen the registration stickers off of my car in the night.

So Bella and I were an hour late getting there (thankfully it wasn’t that far from our house). We passed the enormous ivy covered building twice because – we figured – It CAN’T be that HUGE building… (but the process of elimination told us it was neither the mini mall nor the empty lot).

The ENTIRE twenty-four hours prior to our meeting – Bella had been rattling off all the questions that she wanted to ask him. But… (Bless her heart) as soon as he walked out of the door and came down the stairs to meet us – I knew she had forgotten every single one of them.

RB: (shaking her hand) Hi Bella. It’s nice to meet you.

She nodded awkwardly as she shook his hand. I had to prompt her to return the greeting. I introduced myself and before I knew it we were following him up the stairs.

Thank goodness Rick Baker is just a really laid back - nice guy. He doesn’t put on airs. He’s super easy to talk to – whether it was small talk with me, or the enduring the ridiculous questions that an 8-year-old can ask – he treated both the same. I had never really understood the phrase “down to Earth” before… but I think I do now.

I think maybe some people – who become really successful – it’s not so much that they put themselves on a pedestal – but they start to take things for granted. If I had to guess – I would say that Rick Baker is the kind of person who usually keeps it all in perspective. That’s how it felt to me anyway.

We followed him through the tinted glass door and – OMG – it was insane.

The first thing we saw was a room (Room? Feels weird calling it a room… Maybe SPACE is more appropriate) that was probably the size of Wal-Mart. It was divided long ways down the middle.

On the left side wall, there was a huge air brushed mural of a night sky and a full moon. A Grim Reaper looking creature hung from the ceiling… so that it looked liked he was eclipsing the moon. I looked over to Bella – she was grinning ear to ear.

On the right side of the colossal room was a staircase – which we took up to the second level. We followed Mr. Baker along the second floor balcony and then turned right down a hallway. And when I say “hallway” – what I mean is this:

ME and Bella: Whoa…

At the end of the hall stood great hooded skeleton with a sword. Bella really dug the sword (she started to lose her nervousness at this point and started going into excited overdrive mode).

ME: Wow…What do you think the biggest thing you ever done is?

He looked up at the skeleton and kind of nonchalantly shrugged.

RB: I dunno…This is kinda big?

BELLA: YEAH MOM!!! ITS HUGE!!!!!!

First thing I thought was - Oh Lord… she getting into “screaming excited mode” – I may have to regulate this soon…”

But he just smiled and nodded. We followed him to a room that was just left of the skeleton warrior. He open the doors and grinned.

RB: This is usually everyone’s favorite part…

Understatement. Of. The. Year.

ME and BELLA: Whoaaaaaaaa……

Rick Baker's Hall of Horrors

Years ago, I walked through a “Hall of Horrors” exhibit at Universal Studios. Before that, while living in New Orleans, I saw something similar at an exhibit in the French Quarter.

I can say – without hesitation – this room (left of the skeleton warrior in Rick Baker’s studio), housed the most amazing display of “movie magic” that I have ever seen in my life.

There was too much to recount here. Also, I am no wordsmith – which is really what this whole experience deserves. But I’ll do my best to describe those characters that I remember best.

The first thing that I saw was the gigantic gorilla sitting in the center of the room, from “Mighty Joe Young”… and he was breathtaking.

I wish I could say that Bella walked alongside Mr. Baker and I in a calm and orderly fashion – but the moment the doors opened – Bella was off like a rocket.
It sort of reminded me of when Gene Wilder let the children loose on the candy paradise in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. It was the same kind of feeling. She ran with spastic excitement from one display to another.

BELLA: MOM! DO YOU SEE THIS!?!?! WHOA! HOW ABOUT THIS! WOW! WAIT TIL YOU SEE THIS ONE!!!

I chose (instead of running to random displays like a maniac) to slowly work around the room counter clockwise. Mr. Baker walked with me and answered all of my questions.

To my immediate right –Vincent D'Onofrio stood in a glass case – stretching his skin back about a foot behind his face. That began the “Men In Black” section – which continued on about 20 feet down the right side of the room. So many aliens! About 7 or 8 different full sized characters. Some of them – I had sworn MUST have been done with computer graphics alone (like the Mexican man’s fake head in the beginning of the movie). And yet… here they were… staring back at me.

ME: I used to be so in love with Vincent D’Onofrio. What was he like?

RB: He was really great. A lot of actors complain because we torture them… He should have complained – because we really did torture him – and he didn’t.

Now… I have worked in“the industry” for about a decade now. And I know from experience – if you want dirt on anyone – ask makeup and/or wardrobe. I have heard some stories that ya’ll WOULD NOT believe.

But I have to say – Rick Baker is a total gent. He personifies the expression, “If you can’t say something nice… don’t say anything at all.”

We went from character to character – me asking questions the whole way. He had nothing but good things to say about everyone involved.

Then I pointed out one particular display and asked what it was like working with that person…

RB: Well… I thought they were great in the movie.

He gave me a sidelong smile. I laughed and nodded - and we were onto the next one. That was that, no more was said.

Like I said – a total gent.

After “Men in Black” - We came to “The Thriller” exhibit. Zombie Michael Jackson stared back at me. He wore the iconic red leather jacket.

ME: Please, tell me he was great…

RB: … he was a really sweet guy.

We just stood there for a minute – it was amazing – but also a little melancholy in a way. Like temporarily stepping back and reliving one of the greatest moments in music history – and all the amazing feels that come with that nostalgia - only to have to come back to the reality of knowing how the story ends.

Then we moved on.

After Mikey – I saw a glass case with the bust of an older Caucasian man. It turned out to be Eddie Murphy from “Coming to America”. I was AMAZED at the detail in the pores. What kind of an instrument does one use to make PORES?? I probably should have asked the guy next to me... but I didn’t.

ME: So cool...! Bella will still have to wait a little while before she can see that one. Ha ha ha. I have only shown her clips of American Werewolf…

RB: Yeah… I was kind of wondering about that…

ME: Ha! Yeah… no… I’ll save the “grown up kissing stuff” for when she’s older. I mostly only show her the scenes that pertain to makeup. I showed her some scenes from “Aliens”… but not whole movies yet.

Then the back of the room – there was a cliff jutting out of the right side – Jack Nicholson from “Wolf” was in a crouched position – staring up at the moon.

Walking over to the left side I saw a colorful snowy stage – “The Grinch” stood there smiling wickedly.

ME: I got to have a live cast done of me once… For an H&R Block commercial I did a few years ago. I was a Cyclops.

RB: A Cyclops? Hmm… Could you see at all?

ME: Nope.

Continuing up the right side of the room there was a series of characters from Eddie Murphy’s “The Nutty Professor”. Ironically - this is the exhibit that disturbed me the most.
If you haven’t seen the movie – at one point Eddie Murphy goes to have acupuncture done. There – on the table in front of me – laid a 600 lb Eddie Murphy in nothing but a towel. His eyes were closed – but his face looked SO REAL to me… I was afraid he was going to open his eyes and ask me for a piece of fried chicken.

Then – after “The Nutty Professor” – stood the cases that we really came to see…

ME: Wow… Did you know “American Werewolf” was going to be what it was?

RB: (shaking his head) You never know. You work hard on something and… you hope people respond well to it. But you never know. We had 6 months of pre production - then we shot it.

ME: But you didn’t know it was gonna be… epic.

BELLA: (in her over excited funny voice) I love... on your twitter page… Um… There was a picture where you had the wolf head… And… Um… you wrote “waiting to bite this guy’s head off”. Hahahahaha!

RB: Right! That was this very one!

BELLA: Really?!? Cooool!! Hahaha! That was sooooo funny…

And then she was off again. I stayed behind so I could get a really good look. It was almost the last display before returning to the door.

It’s a good thing we had seen nearly everything – because it was about this point in the visit…something unexpected happened. As I said before – Bella was running around from display to display. She was in the middle of the huge room when I heard her “little” voice… It was a scared voice. Like… not kidding.

BELLA: Mmm…mom…? Oh what… WHAT – IS – THAT?!?!? MOM! COME HERE!!

I walked to where she stood - in the middle of the room. I looked to where she was pointing. And –I’ll be honest – I screamed.

It was the girl from “The Ring”.

Now… had this been just another display (on a stage and under the lights), like the rest of them were –I don’t think Bella would have been so freaked out.

But – I have to admit –it was VERY slyly done. The horrific looking little girl was slumped down into a dark corner – barely visible unless you really took the time to look.
She was partially hidden by the open door. We must have walked right past her when we entered!
I started laughing when I heard Rick Baker chuckling behind me. I wonder how long he had waited for one of us to discover it…

BELLA: (pulling on my arm and trying to whisper) Mom… is it an actor…? Is she gonna jump up and scare me???

ME: No baby! Baby… she’s not an actor – she’s not real.

I looked to Mr. Baker for a confirmation. He nodded (but still seemed really amused).

RB: Absolutely, Bella. It’s NOT real.

Then he put his hand over his mouth and started calling Bella’s name in a spooky voice. I punched him in the arm – but couldn’t help laughing. It also made Bella laugh. She was better after I convinced her that it wasn’t an actor that was going to jump scare us… but she still made it very clear that she was done with that part of the tour.

*** Side Note***

On the ride home – Bella told me that she was so mad at herself for “getting freaked out in front of Rick Baker”. I responded -

ME: Baby… don’t beat yourself up over that. I mean - you know who he is, right? This guy has been getting paid to scare people for years. It’s kind of his thing. If I was in his position - and an 8-year-old walked through my showroom and DIDN’T get freaked out – I would probably be concerned…

***

The Office and the Laboratory

After leaving the showroom – we were again in the hallway with the awesome medieval arches. This time we walked straight past the huge skeleton – to the room on the opposite end.

Now… I assume when most people kiss their spouses in the morning and say, “Ok dear, I’m headed to the office” – it probably doesn’t look like this...

It was a large room that had the same style arches as the hallway.

However, what my eyes first went to were two beautiful big red sofas (they had a really cool “Tim Burton” like vibe).

The sofas sat in front of this elaborate fireplace that was made up of sculptures of flying monkeys (sort of like wicked witch of the west monkeys – but their faces were much more detailed).

Bella did not wait for an invitation – she immediately plopped down on the lush red sofa. I sat down on the sofa opposite her. I was still taking in the whole scene.

ME: Was… any of this (gesturing) … here when you first got here?

RB: (he sat down by the wicked cool fireplace) No… no when we got here it was just… a big empty room.

Now – while this was an epic day that both Bella and I will always remember – I don’t want to give ya’ll the impression that it was completely perfect. There were several “face palm” moments. I think that’s normal when dealing with children – but still.

One of those moments happened here.

BELLA: (finally remembering one of the questions she wanted to ask him) How old were you when you started doing this?

RB: Well, I was 10… So you have a few years on me. I’ve got something for you when we go back down stairs. You’re going to be the most well equipped 8-year-old out there.

Bella inhaled sharply and shot me a ridiculous face. She asked him other questions.

BELLA: I saw that behind the scenes clip of when Linda Blair got hurt… When she was strapped to the bed machine…

Ok… Apparently she was talking about “The Exorcist”. Great… I realized I really needed to clarify something here.

ME: She’s only seen the puke scene! I showed her that… and a few behind the scenes clips… that’s all.

RB: (sort of a relieved laugh) Ah… Well… That’s probably… good.

ME: Yeah…

RB: Because…that movie… has some…

ME: Crazy…scenes… Yep…

RB: That one… scene…

ME: Yep… that one… in particular…

RB: Yeahhhhh…..

Bella was probably looking back and forward between the two of us wondering what the HELL we were talking about.

We sat there in awkward silence for a second – unable to continue the conversation because of the 8-year-old president (who was listening intently).

It all worked out though. The uncomfortable situation paved the way for one of the most hilarious segways I’ve ever seen:

RB: Sooooo! This is my lab over here…!

Bella was up like a rocket. I followed her – laughing to myself.
Well done, Ricky. Well done.

To me - the lab (which was attached to the cool monkey fireplace room) looked miraculous. Mr. Baker kept saying how much of a mess the place was because of the move. I didn’t notice a mess – but then again I have two kids – maybe I’m just used to my surroundings being in a constant state of upheaval.

He showed us the mask he made for himself for last Halloween – a Steampunk Frankenstein. It was really cool – it had coppery bolts, and gross leathery looking skin. The mouth part of the mask had been left open– he explained that was so he could blend the mask in with his real beard.

Crates of Random Awesomeness

We then went back downstairs and walked around that huge “Wal-Mart room” that we saw when we first came in. As we were walking and talking – he would occasionally stop at a random crate or box and pull out something amazing. The first crate we came to was filled with horns from “Maleficent”. I was amazed how light they were…

Bella and I saw 3 or 4 guys working around the studio while we were there. Every time we passed someone – Bella would wave. And every single time the person would wave back and say something to the effect of:

“Hey Bella! Nice to meet you! Great job on the hand!”

Bella was just beaming.

Eventually I told Rick Baker that Bella had originally wanted to do a “transformation” for our little summer movie project. He laughed out loud.

We stopped at another crate and he pulled out a rubbery hand. I thought it was a prop… but then he put it on his hand like a glove! A glove that makes your hand look really fat!

BELLA: Coooool... Oh! Oh! I also wanted to do the… that hand thing! Mom… mom…what was it??

ME: (thankfully I speak Bella) Oh yes… she wanted to try making a webbed hand. Like for an underwater creature.

He tilted his head and sort of smiled at Bella.

RB: A webbed hand. Yeah… that’s… tricky.

ME: (laughing) Maybe start small?

RB: Yes. Start small.

Goodies & Goodbyes

At this point Bella and I followed Mr. Baker into a door on the first floor that led down a hallway. This wasn’t a super cool hallway with gothic arches – but it was really cool in a different way.

This hallway was lined with framed photos. So. Many. Famous. People!!

Some of the photos were onset. Some were pre production. Some were at parties – like THE OSCARS. I saw one picture of Rick Baker holding the Oscar – Vincent Price stood behind him – smiling ear to ear - with his hands on Rick’s shoulders.

ME: (gasping) Vincent Price! I loved him…

RB: Yeah! He was really excited about that…

So. Cool.

Bella couldn’t really appreciate the hall of pictures, as she didn’t really know most of the people in the photos. But boy oh boy – did she ever appreciate what was at the END of the hall…

In that room we got to see what Mr. Baker had set aside for her. It was WAY more than I expected it to be… There were two large black canvas bags FULL of stuff. There was also an actual professional makeup CASE – with the combination locks and everything (a feature that has been well used to keep out her little sister).

Mr. Baker sat down and explained what some of the stuff was. Bella was kind of in flip out mode at that point and so I had to re-explain some of the things later. Then he stood up and looked at Bella -

RB: Hold on for just a minute, I’m going to go check something – I’ll be right back.

Naturally – as soon as the door closed we were BOTH sort of in freak out hysterical mode. I could not BELIEVE there was so much STUFF. And even if some of it she didn’t know how to use yet – I was ecstatic because I knew this meant MY PERSONAL MAKEUP WOULD NOW BE SAFE!!!

When Mr. Baker came back – he was carrying a live cast of a young girl.

RB: Bella… you have to promise me you won't give this away or anything - this is for you. (He looked back and forth from the live cast and Bella’s face and smiled) Yeah… This will work well I think.

Well… by the time we hauled all the stuff out to the car – I think Bella was pretty much in complete shock and awe.

Art helped us load all the goodies into the car – and then he took some pictures of the three of us.

At the end of everything, Mr. Baker turned to Bella and said:

RB: Now Bella… I’m not giving you all this stuff for free. I want you to DO SOMETHING with it. And I want to see pictures. And if you don’t – then I’m going to hunt you down – and take it all back. Ok?

BELLA: (with her big buck tooth grin) Ok… thank you…

For the goodbye – we gave hugs instead of handshakes. And we screamed nearly all the way home.

It really was a day we won’t ever forget.

IN CLOSING

That weekend we went to “Frends” (the makeup supply store Mr. Baker told us about) and got Bella some monster clay. She’s been slowly figuring things out ever since.

When Bella’s not sculpting – she’s experimenting with face painting (blending, color combos, shapes, etc). She has elected her little sister to be the resident face-painting model. I think Lucci was really excited about the position for the first few days. She may be over it now…

Finally, a few words on what I have learned because of this experience.

First,
I never would have put that wolf hand picture up online if Bella hadn’t urged me to do so. I just assumed that a response was HIGHLY UNLIKELY (i.e. Impossible), and so not worth the effort.

Children don’t really know what “impossible” means… because they haven’t learned it from us yet.

I think that is a beautiful quality. It’s one that I will try to hold onto more often in the future.

Secondly,
I have been in “the industry” for 10 years now. And while the commercial world isn’t exactly “cut throat” (especially when compared to the theatrical side) - Even so – after a while it’s easy to get the idea that no one will do anything for you – unless you do something for them first.

Well… I think we can all agree my 8-year-old is not a very well connected person. There’s nothing really extraordinary about her. She’s just a sweet, nerdy kid.

But Rick Baker took the time to make a big impact on her life all the same.

I thank him and will always be grateful for that.

I’m also grateful to him for showing me that you can make it in this town (I mean REALLY make it), without becoming a monster.

Which – considering his line of work – might just be irony at its very best.

Jesse Meriwether

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