Daniel was the first professional prosthetic professional to look at my portfolio. That stuff sticks with you.
That was back in 1994, and there was still a lot of Frankenstein stuff kicking about in the workshop from the previous year. I learned a lot being in that workshop, and got to see a makeup test on Ian McKellan for Richard III in my time there.
Daniel has recently been praised for his work as makeup and hair designer on The Queens Gambit (Netflix) and Chernobyl (HBO). He has an extensive range of credits spanning 37 years, including Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker, Band Of Brothers, Frankenstein (Academy Award nominee) Empire Of The Sun, Cloud Atlas, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and Enemy Mine.
To listen to the podcast, you can stream or download from here, or simply subscribe through your favourite podcast app – we are on many, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, IHeartRADIO , STITCHER , Luminary and Google Podcasts.
Daniel’s father was makeup artist Charles E. Parker, whose credits include Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Moby Dick and Zulu. Growing up around film makeup and studio life had an effect, but throughout it all was a desire to create, to make art. This features strongly in Daniel’s work ethic, and an appreciation of art and how to paint have been influential in his approach.
In this conversation, we talked about how often simple techniques and good paintwork can do so much and using appliances wisely. It is very easy for an artist to fall in love with the processes and things they have learned, and to decide to inflict themselves as extensively as possible on anything they do. Instead, the aim is to see the full picture and work with the raw material of the performer and make only the correct changes for the character.
It is also imperative to be able to delegate, and to work with and trust a team. After all there is only so much makeup an individual can apply – to extend your reach and influence, you need to be able to have a team of people do what needs doing. This is the work of a makeup designer, who will be able to use others skills to create the vision they have for a project.
At the root of it all, one needs to be skilled enough to know good work from bad but not every good makeup artist can work as a designer – it needs a set of skills which can allow others to also perform at their best and is crucial to running a good team.
Daniel also is a director at his temporary Tattoo company, TattooedNow! which he runs with Serbian artists Igor Strangliczky and Nikola Prijic. As their website says, “We make realistic temporary tattoos worn by Hollywood movie stars with an unparalleled realistic look. Made by professional make-up artists, our tattoos are easy to apply and remove.”
It started in 2011 on the film Coriolanus, the first movie directed by Oscar-winning actor Ralph Fiennes. The movie needed tattoos. Hundreds of them. Far too many for one person to cope with.
Shooting was taking place in Serbia and Daniel found a couple of local graphic designers, Igor and Nikola, and taught them how he wanted his artwork created.
The results looked great – and 18 months later Igor got in touch with Daniel and suggested setting up a temporary tattoo company. Check them out at https://www.tattooednow.com/.
Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us directly at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our site.
If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!
–Stuart & Todd
To listen to the podcast, you can stream or download from here, or simply subscribe through your favourite podcast app – we are on many, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, IHeartRADIO , STITCHER , Luminary and Google Podcasts.
Todds ‘Pogo’ homage makeup mentioned in the podcast is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDec4x5skU8
Thank you so much for this interview with Daniel, and the film recommendations, I have just watch Coriolanus…the old scarring on Ralph Fiennes were so good, so convincing and not at all overstated. This is artistry at its finest, so happy to have seen this.