I was encouraged to write about my experience so here goes. I was cast to portray a tusk warrior elder in Netflix Cursed. The process was extraordinary and I had the pleasure of being worked on by an extremely talented team. It took 4 hours on the first day. I had to have the skin on my face and upper body aged, cheek bones and tusks applied on my face, then tattoos drawn freehand. All this done by an amazing artist who understood my skin (and gave me spar level aftercare at the end of each day). She then platted my hair, sewed huge tusks into my hair and placed an incredible long wig on top of all this. It had pagan plats and twists and went past my waist. Then I was tied and sewn into my costume made of skins. It took 2 fittings to get my beautiful costume made and one fitting for this beautiful hair to be built on me. I loved every minute of this process and could happily be a creature everyday.
I actually love the prosthetic process in general. For Rogue One I had an exploding forehead and the extraordinary artist who did this also did my make up for another upcoming series directed by Josh Wheden where I am plague ridden and labotomised. For The Last Jedi I was a glamorous alien with a prosthetic forehead/brow and epic hair.
People ask me how I can sit in a chair for hours on end, but I truly love watching the transformation, and I really feel privileged to have these wonderful artists work on me. I will aim to do more of this work and if there are any creature actors out there I would love some advice on how to get more work. Also if there are any special effects make up artists local to me who need a model to try things out on, I'm here!
This may be the coolest job I've ever heard of! Do you work on body language as well to help sell the character? Or is it more like background acting? Although, sometimes background actors are left to do whatever they want and sometimes they are given very specific instructions.
I was guided in how to walk and present myself as this creature on Cursed. I was given alot of background information with regards to plot, the relationship I have with other characters and how I am affected by the situation. I was also given alot of info for the new series I was doing as this was a very important set of scenes (can't say more, sorry). On both Star Wars movies I was left to my own devices. I have done a motion capture tech acting class which was quite eye opening when it comes to physical acting.