Profile of Michele Burke

"Every time you work in makeup, you are met with new challenges," said two-time Academy Award-winning makeup artist Michele Burke. "You have to be on your toes so you can do the budget, design and apply makeup, and work within a large creative mass of people, some of whom will also have input into how the makeup looks."

With credits as diverse as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Quest for Fire, and Austin Powers II: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Michele Burke is a self-described "makeup artist who designs and creates characters and unusual beings" in an industry where women who do so are a rare commodity.

Having originally immigrated to Canada from Ireland, she began doing fashion and beauty makeup, but she felt like her real calling was in the movies. "To be a true makeup artist, I felt that you had to do everything," she remembered, "so I decided to branch out beyond fashion, even though I still do a major amount of beauty work today."

After apprenticing on several films for no pay just to get into the door, Burke wound her way into a career in feature films, often creating complicated special makeup designs and applications. "I think I have such a good foundation in the prosthetic world because I know how to do really subtle work with fine detailing and a soft touch," she said of the early stages of her career.

Eventually working in Montreal, Burke had to struggle since women in the early 1980s were not entrusted to do the typical lab work involved in prosthetics, such as sculpting, making molds, and working with different materials to create special makeup appliances. "I didn’t think that there were any preconceptions about women who do lab work," she said. "I thought this was what all woman makeup artists in Hollywood did."

Only later did Burke realize how few women did lab work at that time."Even though I did a lot of lab work, people seemed to dismiss the fact that I had those skills," she said. "They kept trying to hire me for the straight makeup-type jobs, although producers and directors did always hire me for makeup effects work. In many ways the fact that some producers felt that a man was better suited to do lab work frustrated me, but in many ways, it got me to where I am today, because, against all odds, I'm here."

After learning all she could about special effects makeup, Burke was on her way to becoming what she called the Queen of Horror. "I was doing a lot of the low-budget horror films that were coming up at the time," she said. "The first one I did, with director Roger Spottiswoode, was called Terror Train, a big slasher movie with Jamie Lee Curtis, who was probably 19 at the time. We were pioneering all of these special makeup effects, including gore effects, aging, and facial transformations - it was the dawn of all this stuff that now is commonplace."

Burke's first big break came when she was called to work on the 1981 French-Canadian production, Quest for Fire. As the film called for a re-creation of the time when Earth was sparsely populated with Neanderthal people, Burke and her team were responsible for creating the protruding foreheads, flared nostrils, and unique looks for the characters over a 7-month production period. "Once we got the actors, we would sculpt the makeups and director Jean-Jacques Annaud would check them," she recalled. "In Africa, we'd have to keep the makeup artists' work consistent so that there wouldn't be changes in the characters' looks. I'd set up little workshops to show people how to do the makeups because accurate Neanderthal characters had never been done before on such a large scale. There were four different tribes, each consisting of 40 or more people. The first makeup team was mostly English, run by Sarah Monzani, and I headed the second part, which was mostly Canadian."

Surprisingly enough, the experience garnered Burke an Academy Award nomination for best makeup. "I was called and told that I was nominated," remembered Burke. "I put the phone down and never thought twice about it at the time because I didn't know what it meant. I had never been to Hollywood, and I didn't know anything about the Academy Awards. Then, to my amazement, we won!"

Burke followed her success on Quest for Fire with two other films dealing with primitive man - Iceman and Clan of the Cave Bear - in both cases, working with future Star Trek makeup supervisor Michael Westmore. "During Iceman, on a daily basis, I was there to assist Michael," she recalled. "In anything that a makeup artist does, their assistants are also responsible. It's a constant fine-tuning of your skills. For Clan of the Cave Bear, we were co-heads of the makeup department and devised a system called double-teaming where two people would do the makeup together. We prepped the show out of Michael's studio in Los Angeles, so that is how I made it down to Hollywood."

One of Burke's fondest tasks, both on Cave Bear and in other projects, was body painting. "I had read Jean Auel's books and was into the new type of body-painted Neanderthal look that she described. We used clays of different colors mixed with water, and some of the designs came from books of primitive Indian and African tribes. It was a very natural part of what I did, and I now do a tremendous amount of body painting using airbrush techniques." Clan of the Cave Bear brought Burke yet another Oscar nomination, but her next victory would be yet to come. Once she arrived in LA, Burke had to re-establish herself, doing movies of the week and character work to get back into the makeup union. "It set me back, but I thought, 'I was a big fish in a small pond in Canada, but now I should face the beast. I've got to see if I could make it as a makeup artist in Los Angeles.' I did lots of effects in smaller films like LBJ which got me into the union."

Burke's subsequent project, Cyrano de Bergerac, brought her another Academy Award nomination and a British Academy Award. "It was a lovely period film which features a slow aging progression for the characters," she said. "As the producers didn't want a caricature, Cyrano de Bergerac is a very good example of makeup playing its part with the character but not making an overstatement."

Shortly thereafter, Burke received the assignment of designing the looks of makeup and hair for all of the characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula, while special makeup artist Greg Cannom created the old age look, the Bat creature and Wolf creature for Gary Oldman. "Initially, I wasn't involved in the hair part at all," Burke recollected, "but when I came aboard, the director, Francis Ford Coppola, said that he wanted one person to spearhead the look of the makeup and hair, and what each character should look like. He wanted me to make drawings of each character and all the looks that they would have on the show, including Dracula's old-age hairstyle. "

Burke's achievements on Bram Stoker's Dracula garnered her another Academy Award for best makeup, indirectly leading to her next major project. "It was at the awards that I bumped into director Neil Jordan," said Burke. "Neil was Irish and had known that I was on Dracula. We verbally agreed there at the awards that Stan Winston would design the looks and I would run the show for Interview with theVampire."

"On Vampire, the makeup system that I first used on Quest for Fire became more sophisticated," Burke stated. "I did research and I'd type out memo sheets for the period we were doing which the makeup artists would then follow. I designed palettes with an application chart for the colors that they should be using, and I would only put the colors that I wanted them to use in the palettes to keep quality control. That was my way of making sure that no one got into bases or color schemes that I knew wouldn't work for the film stock or lighting that the film required. You learn a lot from the directors of photography, and I have worked with some of the best in the world; I learned early on the effects of lighting and filters on makeup, particularly white and orange tones. It definitely affects the makeup colors you choose."

Burke's ideology was based on her experiences working on large-scale films. "When you have big shows with special makeup, producers want to be paying for the actors to be on the screen, working, not spending time in makeup," she said. "The faster you are, the better you can expedite the whole production. I think that is one of my fortés, being able to work it out so that we as a makeup team can pump out these actors to the director, ready to go, and that the makeup doesn't fall off them, and we're not spending major time during production touching them up."

As a result of her consecutive experiences on such big projects, Burke learned a great deal about her personal role in supervising a big show. "You have to choose your team carefully, both in makeup and in hair," said Burke, "making sure that you delegate the right tasks to the right person. In the beginning, I thought you had to do everything yourself, but I have learned that there are so many amazingly talented makeup artists out there. They can contribute greatly to the overall production if you utilize their talents." With the combination of Burke's versatility and the prosthetic innovations from Stan Winston's team, Interview With The Vampire contains an array of striking makeups, from Tom Cruise's various likenesses to the startling vein effects on the other vampire characters.

"I thought of the idea of using tattoo inks for the veins because that was the only way to keep them on all day without rubbing off," Burke recalled. "The appliance makeups were really beautiful, like putting skin over skin, but ultimately, Interview With the Vampire was not meant to be a makeup stage for us to be on. It wasn't one of those films where makeup takes over. It was more important that the characters look the part."

Undoubtedly, Burke has established herself as a unique makeup talent in all facets of the makeup process. Unfortunately, she must still recount her breadth of credits to studio brass who question the abilities of women in the field. "I know I have proven myself as being able to supervise very large departments with complicated makeups and characters," she noted. "At the same time, even to this day, there are some producers and directors, if there is a huge makeup effect to be done, who feel 'I doubt if she really could do this; let's get somebody else.' I've made a point of working on films that had everything, so that if they asked 'can you do this?' I could say, 'I did it here.'"

Following Vampire, Burke was makeup supervisor on the 1997 hit As Good as It Gets, originally called Old Friends, starring Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, and Greg Kinnear. "I didn't have a huge amount of makeup effects to do except on Kinnear, who gets beaten up beyond recognition with a big black eye, and cuts with stitches in them; I made all of those pieces out of gelatin," she recalled. "I designed the injuries that he had, where he gets the blows and what the swelling would be. Other than that makeup, there were the day-to-day makeup challenges for the other characters. In this age of specialty, I ran the department, designed the prosthetics, and applied the leading lady's makeup. Even though that kind of work is 'invisible,' it's always a challenge."

Many other prestigious projects have come since for Burke, including Moll Flanders, Some Mother's Son, and Jerry Maguire, for which she was Tom Cruise's makeup artist and ran the show. "Those shows can be as big of a challenge as any of the other ones," she noted. "You would be surprised how many things come into play. There is so much involved in creating a look on a motion picture."

Burke soon landed her next big project, though this one arrived within a decidedly bizarre situation. "When they called me for the Austin Powers sequel," Burke recalled, "they basically said 'we want you to do Doctor Evil, Mini-Me and the Austin Powers character.' My challenge was that I had to create the characters identical to the first film without any notes, which is a typical challenge we all face as make-up artists. I had to copy the Doctor Evil look from stills and the video tape - I had to redo the nose, the earlobes, the scar, the color of the base, everything."

For Mike Myers' Austin Powers visage, Burke applied a full-on character make-up with base, liner, mascara, eye brows penciled in, cheeks stippled, highlights, shadows, and chin shaded. "As much as a leading lady would put on, he had that much on," Burke remarked. "I would do his make-up and then the wig would go on. It usually took about an hour to make him into Austin."

Given the unorthodox manner in which she came to Austin Powers, Burke learned how to maneuver the many challenges that makeup artists can face on such a project. "You have to put together a correct budget which will match the film to be shot," she said. "You must also work with the actors and directors to create the looks. Try not to create looks that don’t work for the film and make sure that a look is not created that is too loud or doesn’t blend into the film."

Burke stays actively involved in beauty makeup for both film and fashion, having done Sharon Stone's makeup for several recent projects, including Gloria and Picking Up the Pieces, a film which also stars Woody Allen. "If you are a makeup artist in the film business, as much work will come to you due to your good straight makeup as your specialty stuff, but more so really," she explained. "I think being able to do a leading lady is a major achievement on many levels because you have to make them look gorgeous and different every time they work. I see myself as a makeup artist who is capable of spanning the complete spectrum of what is needed, beauty right through to character work, right through to the unreal to the aging to prosthetic work. I have that ability and I can do most things that are required. If you learn every aspect of the business and know everything," she continued, "after a while, you will know which niche is best for you. Not everyone is going to be a supervisor because it means having people skills as well as artistic skills. Some people are better off in one little niche where they sculpt, or another one where they paint, or another one where they just apply. There are many niches and some people make a career out of specializing in one or another of them. You do get to question yourself and there is always the challenge of keeping up with the new technologies."

Of the decision that any person makes to get into makeup, Burke is steadfast on what it takes to succeed. "I think you need a love and a passion for it," she said. "It's not for everybody, with the hours you put in and the personal sacrifices. Those who have that passion and love, whether male or female, will make it."

As for future projects, Burke has a variety of opportunities open to her, not all of which involve movie and TV projects. For one, the beauty makeup manufacturer Max Factor selected Burke as one of six people to be their official Max Factor movie makeup artists. "We are involved with product development," Burke said, "so we get a lot of products to develop and test. I do a lot of interviews with beauty editors giving tips and techniques to people on how to do their makeup. I also helped them launch their 1999 spring line and wrote a how-to handbook. Because I love to get involved with the products, I developed new lipsticks and foundations; I really enjoy the chemistry of makeup."

By fall of 1999, Michele Burke has started yet another show as makeup department head for the big-budget thriller, The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. Burke is teaming up once again with Eiko Isioka, the Academy-Award costume designer from Bram Stoker's Dracula, guaranteeing that The Cell will feature many visual splendors, including new incarnations of Burke’s beloved body painting. Though she has seemingly conquered all her makeup goals, Burke has one left. "In the future, I would like to manufacture some of my own products," she revealed, "but I don't think I will ever stop doing makeup because I see it as a form of art and creativity through which I constantly have a need to express myself. And that fascination with people and characters will never end."

Written and edited by Scott Essman
Contact (626) 963-0635
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