CINEMA - The makeup man whose art is death

Rob Wollard. Los Angeles:

Hunching over the semi-naked body laid out on a slab before him, Matthew Mungle inspects the bloody slit travelling up the bruised torso and admires his gruesome handiwork.

“Not bad,” Mungle says. “Not bad at all.” Anyone parachuting into this grisly scene could be forgiven for wondering if they were witnessing the depraved musings of a psychopath. And in one sense, Mungle is a serial killer.

But the illusion is shattered when the corpse-like body that Mungle has been deftly applying make-up to rises from the slab, dons a bath-robe and saunters off into the chilly dawn of the Universal Studios back lot.

“Another satisfied customer,” says Mungle as a fresh victim prepares to go under the paint-brush or spray-gun.

For the past three seasons, Mungle has worked on make-up for the hit television crime series CSI, part of a resume that boasts over 100 film and television projects.

He is the man entrusted with providing special effects that have helped make the show one of the most popular on US television and an international phenomenon.

Ironically for someone who spends his time dealing in death — even if it is make believe — Mungle cannot stand the sight of blood.

That makes the long hours he spends studying and researching photographs of real-life crimescenes in order to achieve the most realistic effects possible an uncomfortable occupational hazard.

“I shudder a lot,” Mungle said. “I can only look at some pictures for about five minutes then I have to close the book. It’s pretty graphic. What human beings do to other human beings sometimes is pretty horrific.” And while Mungle is never fazed by the creative process — “It’s just makeup and latex” — he does reveal that the actors he works on occasionally prefer not to see themselves being transformed into a corpse.

“Sometimes they get squeamish,” Mungle says. “They ask to be laid down on the table so they don’t have to look at themselves in the mirror.” Having been responsible for so many dead bodies, Mungle has some personal favourites amongst the carnage.

“I remember one where we had to make up a guy who had been shot in the face and in the stomach,” he recalls fondly. “We had to do a time lapse of what had happened to the body and how it had decayed over time. So we had to do four different bodies: from the moment immediately after the body had been shot, to
the decay, the swelling, the collapsing of the corpse. It was challenging but it looked great.” Mungle divides his time between a Hollywood workshop and early morning starts on set.

A 28-year veteran of the industry, Mungle knew he wanted to be a make-up artist from an early age, when he became fascinated by the make-up processes behind some of Hollywood’s most famous monsters. “When I was 10 years old I watched monster movies — Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, stuff like that. I was obsessed with it,” he says.

The fact that Mungle now works where some of the legends of Hollywood’s golden era of horror movie stars plied their trade is particularly satisfying. “It still gives me chill bumps when I think about some of the great movies that were made here,” he says. “I’m like a kid — I’ll go over to the stage and say ‘Lon Chaney used to make movies here’.” Monster movies have given Mungle some of the most satisfying moments of his career, most notably work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula which won him an Oscar in 1992.

Under Mungle’s guidance, Gary Oldman was transformed into one of the most terrifying incarnations of the vampire ever seen on the silver screen. “It took us about four hours to get Gary ready for those scenes where he’s Dracula in his castle,” Mungle says. “Gary is such an amazing actor anyway but to watch him actually become Dracula in front of your eyes was extraordinary.” “Francis would shout ‘Action’ and you’d be looking at Dracula. Incredible.” Other notable projects he has been involved in include Schindler’s List and Natural Born Killers.